#it’s only there temporarily. and sometimes that temporary is a couple of days and sometimes it’s years

[zouisalmightie]

.

[iamirhen]

The Midnight Suns rock Band AU literally nobody asked for.

Lore dump under the cut.

The AU in which Robbie never died at that race because the people who cornered him in that alley were actually the police. He managed to get lucky for one single time and narrowly managed to avoid jail by getting sentenced to do community work instead and assisting mandatory sessions in Blade's therapy group for troubled youth at risk. He met Nico, Wanda and Illyana there and ended up begrudgingly befriending them. Blade considers this kids both one of his biggest achievements and biggest sources of headaches.

Nico still get on Robbie's nerves sometimes and in the rare ocasion that he fights with Illyana it usually gets so bad that Wanda needs to mediate because neither of them will put their foot down otherwise. He still makes an effort to keep them in his life, because when he's too tight with money Nico will "accidentally" order too much pizza when they meet and he'll end up going home with leftovers afterwards, so he doesn't complain too much when she asks him to drive her places; and Illyana once showed up to take care of Gabe when he had the flu because Robbie had to work and didn't want to leave him alone, so when she mentioned that she was going to have to sleep in her van for a few days while she searched for a new flat after her former landowner kicked her out, he let her crash at his couch instead. They take care of each other in small ways, even if they dont' mention it.

Starting the band was Nico's idea so they would have an excuse for regular meet ups. She was also the one who got Robbie a second hand battery and insisted that he at least tried. It turned out that he was not half bad at it, he had a good sense of rithm and good coordination, and was surprised to find out that the gigs they eventually managed to pull out were starting to become a very welcome source of extra income. They meet for practice at a community center located in an old church, regented by a couple of old ladies: Sarah and Agatha. Gabe is their number one fan (and Piotr Rasputin is a close second, much to Illyana's dismay), so he's the other reason he hasn't dropped out yet despite being tight on time. After going for several provisional names, the last of them being Scarlet and the Witches, which Robbie was not very enthusiastic about, they ended up setting for Midnight Suns after Hunter's incorporation.

After Wanda was involved in a car accident that left her badly injured and put Agatha in a coma, their band was left without their main singer and guitarrist. It was then when Hunter, Sarah's niece, who had been raised by her aunt and her partner, temporarily moved back to the state after receiving the news about the accident. Hunter's relationship with Sarah became strained after she dropped out of college and started studying to become a tattoo and piercing artist instead. She's covering for Wanda and her stay is only temporary, or at least that was the original plan, but it seems that after her incorporation the band is doing better than ever before. Robbie's not so thrilled about having a new person joining his inner circle, and specially not one that's such a cocky little shit, but better gigs means more money, and he doesn't want to have to go back to work two jobs now that he can manage to live with the money he gets from his work at Canelo's AND the band.

Thanks @moosemonstrous for helping brainstorm ideas.

[notsodelirious]

Heyyyyyy (leans on fancy car)😎

Can I request stealing Wally West’s clothes with Male Reader?

hi :) (leans on your fancy car) absolutely you can!

synopsis: Wally is very generous with his clothes and sometimes, he doesn’t have a choice

notes: SFW with a couple of comments, also while this is an x male reader, it’s only ever referenced when the reader calls himself ‘masculine’ and ‘gay’, Wally calls him ‘dude’

tags: stealing clothes, pre-relationship, getting together, fluff and bickering abt 1k words, no use of y/n

•─────⋅☾⊱♰⊰☽⋅─────•

It was just supposed to be a casual hang out with a friend. Normal, casual, just a way for bros to chat and play video games together, relaxing after a stressful day of classes and labs. You and Wally had met during uni, had cried and lamented over quantum physics and the rest was history.

Which is how you ended up on his couch out 2 AM, yelling at him over his use and abuse of redstone.

“Dude, you just hoard it!”

“I mined it, dickface! Stop stealing from me!”

“I just made a cool secret base!”

“I needed that for redstone lamps.”

“You’re such an ass,” his words were mumbled but you heard him loud and clear and cuffed him on the back of the head.

“You’re a stealer.”

“Stealer?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” you shoved his shoulder but his stupid ass only laughed—you had to glare at the TV in a sorry attempt to not look like a love sick puppy when you saw him smile. He was handsome, objectively, but staring felt a little too gay for a casual hangout. You focused on the game instead, wading through dark caves in search of more ore.

You focused on the task at hand, or tried to at least, because the chill in Wally’s apartment was bad enough to have your hairs standing on end.

“Don’t you ever turn on the heating?”

“Why? Are you cold?”

“Dude, it’s genuinely snowing outside,” you frowned as you pointed to the window, and lo and behold you were correct—the city had gained a thin blanket of snow, temporarily and partially intact as the city slept. Wally lived in a reactively quiet part of the city but come sunrise, the snow would be muddy and trampled.

Wally didn’t say anything as he stood and disappeared into his bedroom. Only to return with a thick jumper in hand.

You weren’t about to argue about why he didn’t just turn on the heating—you accepted the hoodie and slipped it on, almost melting into the fabric. It smelt so distinctly like Wally, an afterimage, delicate and warm, holding the same fruity undertones as his body wash. Oh, this was coming home with you.

Wally hadn’t quite realised that was the catalyst for your theft spree as he resumed the game to continue furnishing his cool secret base.

But you knew.

And it was too late to turn back now.

The next time was arguably very much not planned. The floor of your dorm had flooded and useful as ever, the university helped in absolutely no way shape or form when it came to temporary accommodation. So you were forced to relocate by your own means while they fixed the issue. Thankfully, Wally had agreed to let you crash on his couch while everything got sorted out—the benefits to having a friend live off campus.

You helped out where you could in an attempt to make up for living in his space: cleaning, cooking, laundry. You did it even when he assured you, you didn’t have to, but it was a nice change of pace so you did it anyway.

And maybe you took advantage of that.

But in retrospect, you felt it was inevitable that you’d swipe a pair of his sweats when folding clean laundry.

It took him a full day before he realised that you weren’t wearing your own clothes.

You were messing around in his kitchen when he appeared behind you, set on raiding his fridge when he paused.

“Did you always roll up your waistband?”

“Hmm?” You looked up from the chopping board, pushing the diced bell peppers to the slide. “Why?”

“Those don’t fit you.”

“Sure, they do.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked between you and the sweatpants. You smiled innocently before turning back to your vegetables. Only to yelp—a very dignified and manly sound—when he hooked a finger in the waistband of your bottoms and tugged it.

“Hey!”

“These are mine!”

“Nuh uh! They’re mine now!”

“You can’t just wear my stuff and say it’s yours-“

The bickering went back and forth as you continued to prepare dinner. His finger was still in his your waistband. This was fine. You were fine. At no point did you feel you were about to implode from nerves, embarrassment, or horniness.

It was fine.

You took the sweatpants back to your dorm. Over the week you had stayed, Wally had relinquished control over them and you returned to your newly unflooded dorm giddy and a pair of sweatpants richer.

The third time you stole something of his wasn’t very much theft as it was mild emotional manipulation and looking miserable.

You’d just come back from getting dinner together, some cheap pizza place that could keep up with Wally’s insane appetite—it was pit stop after you had both spent hours at the library, going through entire textbooks worth of material for your upcoming exams.

The streets had warmed as you left winter behind and the snow gave way to sun and kinder breezes. You thought you were fine walking through the streets of Keystone with just a hoodie on—it wasn’t freezing and your skin was thick enough to take it.

You hadn’t accounted for the rain.

It was a couple of droplets at first.

“Do you think it’s going to come down?” Wally asked as he looked up towards the partially cloudy skies.

“Nah, we’ll be fine.”

You were in fact not fine. The downpour was sudden, and even went you dashed for cover under a closed shop’s storefront, you were still left drenched and shivering. You knew you looked like a drowned rat when you looked at him, wet hair stuck to your forehead and arms wrapped around yourself.

“Take that off,” Wally said, gesturing to your hoodie, which you did with stiff limbs. He shucked his jacket off his shoulders before wrapping it around yours, pulling you a little closer to himself as he did so.

The jacket was toasty, infuriating warm and comfortable if you thought about it. All of Wally’s clothes were unfairly warm and comfortable. It made wearing them all the more satisfying.

“You’re gonna catch your death like that,” I mumbled as I shuffled closer, leeching off his warmth like a cat looking for sunlight—he really did run hot all the time, it was insane.

“Nah, I’ll be fine,” he assured you as he wrapped an arm around your shoulders. It was too late to not notice how close you were, how you could smell him, the scent you’d internalised weeks ago when you’d borrowed his jumper.

You met his eye again.

You don’t know who moved first—you supposed it didn’t really matter.

His lips were gentle against yours, maybe a little rushed, or eager, as you leaned into it. It felt like a sigh of relief, pent up emotions and frustration finally pouring out of you as you kissed him.

The raining around you lightened.

You finally pulled away from each other.

A hand on the nape of his neck, the other clutching his jacket, you rested your forehead against his, smiling a little stupidly as you stood together under your little alcove, alone and together on a deserted street.

“You taste like pepperoni,” was the first thing his stupid mouth uttered as he pulled you into an embrace.

“Shut the fuck up.”

You rested your head against his shoulder as you let him hold you.

“By the way, I’m keeping this.”

“Absolutely not.”

•─────⋅☾⊱♰⊰☽⋅─────•

a/n: tada! I hope I did Wally justice, I’ve read some of his comics and watched the YJ show but I’ve never written for him — requests are open, more info in my pinned post

[mizartz]

cant stop thinking about danny fenton DST mod. sketchdump time

mod concept/rambling under the cut:

Danny Fenton

The Half-Ghost

Favorite food: Veggie Burger (despite the name, this is actually considered a meat item. both sam and tucker would be willing to eat this!)

200 Health | 175 Hunger | 120 Sanity

PERKS:

Is a ghost... sometimes [neutral to ghosts, innate cold resist, human + ghost form]

Human food only feeds half of him [.5x stat gain from food + need for ectoplasm]

Has obsessions to fulfill [increased attack/defense when allies are nearby, decreased stats when no allies, loses sanity/other consequence if allies die]

Has a deadly weakness to electricity [increased damage+sanity loss from lightning, electric damage] ...also damaged by proximity to evil flowers, but this will apply to ALL ghosts, not just danny

ABILITIES:

Transforms into his ghost half by alt-clicking himself.

can fly over/walk through obstacles (ignores collision)

increased damage/defense & increased hunger drain, constant sanity drain

ghost-like sanity drain aura (applies to nearby players except Wendy)

is a "monster" (attacked by pigmen, bunnymen, catcoons, etc)

takes more damage from electricity + evil flowers than his human form. (maybe also increased damage from magic/shadows/planar attacks?)

Cannot talk in ghost form. Uses incomprehensible language instead (either "OooOOOoo" like DST ghosts or made up ghostspeak)

Can shoot ectoblasts by alt-clicking enemies. Costs hunger per use. Usable in both forms, but deals more damage in ghost form.

maybe has a small chance to freeze enemies, with increased chance in winter?

If Danny dies, he leaves his human corpse behind (instead of a skeleton) and is stuck in ghost mode.

Permanently insane, -90% max HP. Corpse needs to be revived with a telltale heart [or some other item] (revives with no health penalty).

If killed again, corpse is replaced with a skeleton and danny becomes a "normal" DST ghost. When reviving using vanilla methods, has a bigger health penalty + sanity loss.

ITEMS/MOBS:

ECTOPLASM. Periodically spawned by ghosts & pipspooks. Chance drop on a ghost's death.

Danny needs to eat ectoplasm regularly or he gradually gets weaker [or some other consequence here].

Can be given to ghosts to make them temporary allies [Danny only]

DOG TOY. Temporarily spawns CUJO.

limited "loyalty" (spawn time) but can be fed ectoplasm to keep him around longer

immortal/can't be killed, loses loyalty instead

can walk on water (ignores collision)

"gets big" whenever danny is attacked. will attack all nearby mobs (even if not aggressive) for a certain amount of time before shrinking again

BLOB GHOSTS. passive mob/won't attack.

either spawn near headstones or around ectoplasm left on the ground

“prey” animals like rabbits (will run away from scary creatures & players, excluding danny/other ghosts)

automatically start following danny whenever he's near + grant him small sanity gain

will periodically spawn ectoplasm on the ground (higher rate than regular ghosts) OR passively restore danny’s ectoplasm meter based on proximity

ectoplasm is guaranteed drop on death (but why would you kill them you monster 🙁🙁🙁🙁)

despawns after a couple days

other potential items/perks:

ectoplasm tracker- points towards ectoplasm/ectoplasm sources on the map. or maybe cujo can track it instead?

fenton thermos- holds ectoplasm and/or ghosts in storage slots? 

Other things I'm less certain on:

if ghost form has higher hunger drain, should it also drain the ectoplasm meter faster?

want something to imply that ghosts are emotional creatures/danny's strength is tied to his emotions somehow, but "growing weaker/stronger at low sanity" is an overused perk. maybe he takes increased damage at low sanity?

maybe some other protection based perks idk

maybe his human form should be weaker than average, to encourage gathering/etc in human form, and combat in ghost form?

ok its that it byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[tiredlilguy]

Posture

a/n: mm... sexy training arc with slightly sexual/romantic tension go brrrrrrrr

pairing: Paul Verlaine X GN!Reader cw: slightly suggestive//, not proofread desc: you've been given a promotion from your boss, Mori, as an assassin. although you have good words in, you still need training under an executive... due to a switch up, the executive you were assigned was rather peculiar.

Being in the Mafia wasn’t as easy, everybody knew that. Though, being someone who had no ability and a low rank was even harder. However, the past few days seemed to be a rather surprising blur.

To start, you were called to Mori’s office with a job request.

You promoted from a low-level runt to an assassin.

Not only was it a promotion, but it was a higher paying job. Assassin’s in the Mafia was supposed to stay anonymous most of the time: it was a rather simple job, but risk of dying went up by ten-fold if you didn’t get out of there quick enough. However, Mori entrusted you with such a task, and you were put under training for a couple weeks by of one of the five executives.

Luckily for you, you were assigned under Chuuya. You had known him before as you had befriended him after being put as his temporary assistant for a day when his old one previously died from a job. He got to know you personally to some extent and even offered his number in case you were in trouble. You felt yourself let out a breathe of relief as Mori had told you said information, and you were told to report to Chuuya the next morning.

Well… the next day you received a call that Chuuya was sent out abroad for work due to an emergency. To put it simple: you were temporarily moved to a different executive. This one in particular was a man who you didn’t even know was given position as an executive. This man was rather peculiar: he was locked up in the basement where the Mafia’s prisoners usually stayed (or at least resided temporarily before being tortured or killed). He himself was a prisoner, but took the job of a sub-executive that had passed away. You were to deliver him meals throughout the day, shadow him under jobs, and deliver anything he needed. To put it simple, you weren’t just under training, you were his glorified assistant (not that it was a position you were unaware of).

You had been preparing his dinner, and had realized halfway through that you had no idea what this man looks like. You had been preparing tea when you heard the door open, revealing another executive you knew in passing: Kouyou Ozaki.

“ Hey, rookie,” she walked over to you and prepared herself some tea as well,” How’s it going so far? Are you nervous?”

“ A little,” you mumbled, pouring the tea into a teacup,” I don’t even know who this man is… It’s a little strange I suppose. I just wish I was still with Chuuya, but he’s away now.”

She placed a sleeved arm over your shoulder with a smile,” Hey… don’t worry too much about it. There’s truly nothing to worry about. Though, if you are nervous about befriending him…”

You watched as she reached under her sleeve and placed a pear down on a tray,” I heard a rumor that these are his favorite.”

With that, she took her cup of tea and walked out of the door with a smile. You silently thanked her as you finished preparing the tray.

…

The walk down to the basement from the kitchen was a grueling task. There were multiple ways of going up and down in the Mafia’s buildings, but the kitchen did not have a simple route to get down to the basement. You had to walk down five more floors, across the other side of the floor and down an elevator. Sometimes you had to walk down a different set of stairs that was at the back or a different elevator: all while trying to get there while the food is still warm… and god forbid there was a gunfight going on downstairs.

Thankfully, you were spared by the gods and could go down your treacherous route without a fight (but not without almost tripping once or twice). Eventually, you reached the final set of stairs into a particular office room in the basement. You opened the door and were met with a man who was sitting as his desk looking rather unamused at a file in his hand. He had blonde hair that was braided to the side with bangs that fell on the right side of his face. His head leaning up against his gloved hand until he looked up to see you. At first, he felt himself tense, but that tension quickly went away as he looked at your face. You made him feel calm in a way, despite only seeing your for a short few seconds as you stood there silently awaiting his approval. You were… cute in a way.

He sat up, placing the file off to the side and gestured for you to place the tray down. You did so, gently placed it on his desk before backing up, awaiting his orders.

“ Hello, my name is (Y/N),” you cleared your throat,” I’ll be your new assistant in the meantime while you train me to become an assassin. I hope you’ll take care of me.”

The man nodded before picking up the pear curiously. He seemed to be pleased, as he pulled out a switchblade from his pocket and began to peel it. “ I’m Verlaine,” he greeted as he continued to peel,” It’s nice to meet you… Who gave you the idea to give me a pear?”

“ It was Ms. Kouyou who told me,” you answered honestly,” I hope you’re satisfied.”

“ I appreciate the gesture. You’re quite smart,” he started to cut the pair into smaller slices,” This looks a lot nice than the rations that I usually get, did you happen to make this yourself?”

You nodded, and once again he let out another hum of approval. You watched in silence as he calmly finished cutting apart the pear, taking a slice and eating it. He took a sip of the tea that was on his tray before standing up.

“ Now then,” he gently took off the white gloves that were over his hands before walking over to you,” I’m going to fix your posture. You’re slouching.” Verlaine wouldn’t admit it, but you weren’t slouching at all. He just simply… wanted to touch you.

His eyes walked around you with a rather blank stare, but you had to admit that it made you nervous. His emerald eyes stared you down like predator to prey, but you had no other choice but to stand there and wait for him to do this thing.

His hand moved to your chin, slightly pushing it up,” Chin up.”

You had to admit, his hands were strangely warm. You felt as butterflies seemed to fly about in your chest.

He walked behind you and touched your lower back gingerly, not enough to push you, just a calm gesture,” Straighten your back.”

Verlaine finished his walk around before standing in front of you,” Now look me in the eye.”

You did so, though you’d felt like the wind was being knocked out of you as you stood there. You didn’t want to make the slightest move in fear of what he’d say or do. Lucky for you, though, he wouldn’t do anything to actually hurt you with intention.

However, you made a foolish decision and let out a sigh, relaxing into your body. Verlaine quickly took your hand and flipped you over onto your back on the floor. You were about to get up before being pushed back into the ground, your body feeling ten times heavier than it originally did.

“ Ow…,” you frowned, trying to resist gravity. You had forgotten that he and Chuuya shared a similar ability.

“ It’s been a while since I’ve trained someone to be an assassin,” he snapped his fingers as he kept you in place with his ability,” I overheard that you didn’t have an ability.”

You let out a heavy sigh, letting yourself fall into the floor as gravity pushed onto you,” No, I don’t.”

“ I hope you know I won’t go easy on you,” the blonde smirked, walking back to his desk and picking up the piece of toasted bread that was on there and taking a bite. You were still laying on the ground, but he deactivated his ability, letting you lay there. “ I heard good things,” he placed the piece of bread, now with a bite in it,” So don’t go easy on me either.”

You hadn’t realized that his ability deactivated, but you were quickly taken out of your trance as he lended you a hand with a gentle smile.

“ Here, I won’t try to flip you over just yet, but that was your first lesson…

Let’s begin.”

…

It was a week now, and you had finally finished up your stamina training with Verlaine. It involved way too much strength work for yourself, but you pulled through despite that: not wanting to fail him. The only problem was that walking home was starting to become a challenge as now you had to call for a car to take you home despite it only being a ten minute walk away. Thankfully the moment that you had made it to the entrance of the building, there was a car waiting for you. You hopped in, relaxing into the leather seat with a sigh. However the silence was disturbed as you got a call: it was Chuuya.

“ It’s me,” you answered with a exhausted sigh, feeling your sore muscles as they ached the more you moved.

“ You alive, idiot?,” Chuuya sounded slightly worried, but was being a little sarcastic.

“ Somehow, I’m having a driver take me home. I can’t even walk ten minutes from here to get to my place,” you answered, looking out the window as you saw the various buildings and people walk by.

“ Sounds like Verlaine,” Chuuya let out a small tsk. You heard the sound of a lighter going off, assuming that he was about to smoke a cigarette: something that he did when he was stressed.

“ How is it over there?,” you asked, striking up conversation.

“ It’s a pain in the ass,” the redhead answered, sighing as he let the smog come out of his mouth from the cigarette,” My subordinate almost died and I also somehow ended up taking care of an entire business temporarily. I should be back in another week.”

“ Hm..,” you sighed,” By the way, why’d you put me under this guy instead of Kouyou?”

The redhead thought for a second,” Mainly because I wanted you to come out strong. To be honest, if I wasn’t going to train you, I wanted him to.”

“ You must trust him a lot then.”

“ Not at all. Actually, seeing him pisses me off, but he’s trustworthy when it comes to stuff like this I guess.”

“ What is he to you, anyways…?”

Chuuya didn’t seem to answer, and you quickly changed the subject,” Sorry… none of my business. I’ll see you in a week, Chuuya.”

“ K…,” you heard him scoff,” Don’t die on me.”

You let out a soft chuckle,” I won’t. Just make sure you come back in one piece too.”

You hung up the phone, placing it in your pocket as you relaxed in your seat once again.

Unbeknownst to you, Verlaine had grown fond of you over the course of a week. He looked forward to your visits, and not to mention the food that you’d prepared for him. You always gave him a pear just to see the small smile on his face. You were charming to him: not to mention rather strong despite not having an ability. You were rather headstrong, and despite having a hard time trying to adjust to his training regimen. Despite that, your determination to get better was fascinating to him. He found that passion attractive and alluring.

Such an interesting human you were, he thought to himself.

…

Tension and release.

That was the technique he was going to teach you. You were wearing bandages over your fists as you started hitting a punching bag with trained breathes. Verlaine had been observing you as you warmed up, but soon enough he grew bored of just sitting there and walked up behind you.

Too focused on him getting up, you were still taking punches at the bag, on occasion kicking it as well. You felt your arms started to get sore, but you kept hitting at it.

Two hands reached down to your forearms, stopping you in your tracks as you jumped slightly. You soon relaxed, realizing that they were Verlaine’s. He moved his mouth to your ear, whispering a word of advice:

“ You’re all too tense. Relax your muscles for a moment, will you? You’re only going to wear yourself out.”

Finally letting out a breathe you’d been holding, you apologized. To your dismay, he only shook his head in response before walking around to demonstrate something. You placed your hands down at your sides, rolling your shoulders back as you observed. Quickly he breathed in before letting out a quick breathe and punching the bag so far back at it almost swung to the ceiling. He quickly avoided that using his ability, however.

“ Now then… what was the difference there?”

“ It was quicker…,” you answered simply.

“ Good,” he let the punching bag come back down using his ability before releasing it back to it’s normal state,” Tension in small doses is good, but release should be what you focus on more. The more release you have, the faster you go into the punch, and the closer you get the tension increases.”

You nodded in understanding before positioning yourself once again.

“ Your posture,” the blonde pretended to nitpick.

“ Apologies, sir.”

Once again, Verlaine simply said that just so he could get closer to you. He did the same things: a hand under your chin, then on your lower back. Though, this time, he stared at you longer. You looked up at him awkwardly, not knowing what to say as his green eyes seemed to bore holes into yours. In truth, he didn’t really know why he was staring for so long, but maybe he just wanted to look at you for just a little longer.

You cleared your throat,” I’m sorry… Is there something wrong with my face.”

Quickly avoiding your question, his gloved hand swiped on your cheek before letting go,” No, just a smudge. Finish up here in a couple of minutes. I’d like to get started.”

“ Yes, sir.”

As Verlaine walked away, you didn’t fail to notice the small smirk on his face as he moved back to his seat.

…

It was coming towards the end of your training with Verlaine, as he’d decided to let you go since Chuuya was set to return the day after. Both you and him had growing tensions. He’d always fix your posture and get uncomfortably close to your face. It had taken you a while to figure it out, but maybe there was really nothing wrong with your posture or what was on your face. To your assumptions, you assumed he had grown feelings for you. On your end though, you felt yourself reciprocate those feelings, though you didn’t want to say anything, considering that it’d be inappropriate to say so. You were both done with your session today, and he was leaning against the wall, playing with his switchblade as you were packing up to leave.

“ Excuse me, Mr. Verlaine,” you adjusted a bag over your shoulder.

He looked up to you with a hum.

You smiled, walking up to him,” Say, is there a reason why you keep fixing my posture? You’ve been doing it every day now, and I’m assuming it’s not because it’s actually wrong.”

Feeling rather bold, he kept a sane expression,” Well, in truth, yes, there’s nothing wrong with your posture.”

“ Then why is it that you always fix it?,” you raised a brow, taking a step forward. This time, you were the one to get uncomfortably close to him.

“ Such a foolish reason, I’m afraid,” he sighed, uncrossing his arms.

You raised a brow, before you felt lips gently touch yours. You widened your eyes, feeling yourself blush red in the face. However, as fast as it was to make you flustered, it went away just as fast.

“ I just… wanted to touch you.”

a/n: the ended was a reference. i had to- im sorry pfft

[dearweirdme]

I have been a tkkr almost as long as i have been an army since like 2016. im jk biased and tae has always been my bias wrecker. i have consumed taekook fan content such as reading aus and fanfics, etc. but i wouldn't say i am a believer (?). i am simply a shipper i guess? i just cannot bring myself to believe they are actually dating (nor do i believe that they are dating other members for that matter).

BUT i want to believe so help me with this

recently i fell down the taekook tumblr rabbit hole and i am very intrigued. you said in one of your last posts on how to distinguish a couple without them kissing or obvious physical affection and you answered it perfectly no doubt, the actions of a couple are very different from a pair of friends.

but what actions do you see tkk doing specifically that the other pairs are not doing??? you said they don't have any physical boundaries with each other but other pairs do. but sometimes i can see other pairs also not having a definite moment for their boundaries. i for the life of me cannot see the difference.

as a jk biased person it is very obvious to me he has a different wavelength with all the members and he is closer to some than others. so are the other members. i am not doubting that they could be queer or anything but i just cant see jk and tae dating each other. ofc it is very obvious that they are close friends who clearly love each other but i cant see anything more than that

so help me with this, tell me where can i start? like suggest me specific content to go back and watch? cuz i have pretty much seen everything maybe this time ill watch with a different lense

Hi anon!

Well… this is quite different from people usually telling me to stop Tkking 😂. To start off, it’s not necessary to believe in them. If you’re fine just enjoying their friendship, than that’s totally fine. And also.. if you haven’t seen what I see by now while you have already watched Tkk extensively, I’m not sure what I can say to enlighten you more.

I agree that there are moments when other pairings are also extremely physically intimate. To me those moments are more like a temporary extension of physical boundaries, because it suits the occasion. For instance, while engaging in banter two people might touch each other differently in places they might otherwise not do so freely. Or when comforting someone, those boundaries are also temporarily widened, because comforting someone might call for a more physical approach. That is what I see a lot between other members.. it has to do with the context of the moment a lot. Whereas between Tae and Jk I feel there’s more of a continuation of extended physical boundaries and their actions don’t rely on context much. They just touch freely.

It is hard to talk about signs of them being a couple, because we only/mostly see them in ways that have nothing to do with their private lives. We don’t see couply moments of any member. What I do feel we have seen are moments in which they seem in love.

Tae kissing Jk’s neck is a strong one for me. Jk’s reaction to it is also telling I feel.

The way Tae looked at Jk during the vminhopekook live is telling to me.

I think the vminkook live is also real showing of the attraction between them.

When we look at things that happened more recently, I feel them wearing the same shirt on the same day is a thing couples would definitely do, but best friends maybe not so much.

For me the lives Tae did where he was listening to the song Jk songs for him (missing Jk) and the two after, also very much speak of them being a couple to me, because when you look at those combined and place them in context you get Tae missing Jk very much while he was away, Jk going (almost) straight to Tae when he arrived back home, and them sharing a bed later at night. It just makes so much sense to me.

It will always be subjective. It’s not possible to speak of hard evidence. But when I look at the whole of it, I just see a clear story that makes sense to me.

[mesaprotector]

it feels more and more these days that i'm not someone who was meant to thrive.

writing this in a fever-induced haze still under the effects of a couple of doxylamine tablets i took last night to sleep.

it's been seven months since i had a job. i don't really mind working, except that many bosses i have seem to end up angry at me and expect me to read their mind as to why. more likely true the harder i try at a job - when i slack off, people love me. i don't get it.

i have a couple of friends who are so wealthy they will never have to work in their life. another friend, about my age, will eventually have to work. each time we see each other i wonder if they feel as anxious about the future as i do.

of course i also tell myself that what job i have doesn't matter. as long as i live somewhere i have friends to see and a family to take care of (including a partner, but not necessarily children - i'd be very happy as an uncle) - i'd be able to work at anything. and that might be true.

of course having friends and family is an even older unresolvable problem. i do have friends. close friends, temporary acquaintances. they're scattered around the planet and there's no town on earth where i could gather up even a half dozen people for a movie night or a trip to the bar. i miss a lot of the people i used to know. so many of them just fell out of touch with me, and sometimes it was my fault but less and less so the more time goes on.

and if you're reading this, it's very unlikely you have any real empathy for someone who at 30 still doesn't understand romantic love. if your first instinct is "just use a dating app" or "we're all in the same boat" then you might be a lost cause. i'll try to help you, though.

imagine being born deaf, and reading that music and rhythm are the soul of human feeling, the way people celebrated and grieved since a time before time.

imagine being born blind, and hearing that there's a world of meaning in seeing a brilliant smile, a turbulent sunset, that life is all worth it if only you have those.

imagine being born unable to speak. every word, every cry, every gasp, every note sung a reminder you cannot reciprocate.

it's a little like that, i think. though being myself someone who is not deaf, not blind, and can speak, i could be entirely off the mark. there is a quote somewhere about how americans all view themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. one thing all of the above have in common is that you can start to view OTHER people as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, whose fortunes will inevitably improve, while yours won't.

most mainstream stories are about such "relatable" people, who will bitterly complain when they are briefly made to struggle but always end the story with hearing, with sight, with speech, and with romance.

of course i'm just failing to cope. people are born every day with every kind of disadvantage and still end up fulfilled. meanwhile i'm letting myself avoid applying for a new job and avoid becoming a better person and avoid. avoid. avoid.

because if i stop avoiding it all i might be faced with the reality that all of my problems were solvable all along, and that the horrible corny advice people gave me at age 17 (the year i began this blog) would've fixed it all if i'd just tried the tiniest bit.

and that the very normal people i envy so much are just people who managed that minimum of effort. maybe that's what i should've done at work too! tried a tiny bit. try too much and you remind successful people that their success is nothing to be proud of.

i don't know. i hope this illness lasts three days rather than three weeks. i could try to type a followup when it's all over, but what will be my excuse for being negative then? i need to find one. avoid. avoid.

avoid.

[torturing-characters-101]

maybe this is a little vague, but how long would it take for a coma patient to die after their life support is withdrawn?

Very interesting question. It depends on what life support measures are being implemented, and how dependent on them the person is.

Life support is a range of different machines and therapies designed to keep a person alive. This ranges from something called ECMO, which effectively takes over for the heart and lungs for temporary periods, to simply a tube that goes from the nose to the stomach to deliver food and water to a person who cannot eat or drink.

As stated above, the most intensive life support is ECMO, which is essentially a machine that takes over the functions of the heart and lungs temporarily- oxygenating blood outside the body and circulating it. This is usually used in open heart surgery, though it can be used in some ICUs for longer periods of time. Assuming the person is entirely dependent on ECMO (as in, they do not have heart or lung function on their own), they would begin to die within minutes of ECMO being withdrawn.

Next down might be something like a ventilator. Ventilators have different modes that allow a person who has some respiratory function on their own to continue exercising it while being supported mechanically.

For example, someone may be on a ventilator only to provide extra pressure to overcome the resistance from a tube that goes from their mouth to their lungs to hold open their airway, and sometimes it adds pressure to make it easier for the person to pull in breaths. This person can probably breathe on their own for an indeterminate amount of time and would not necessarily die if the ventilator was withdrawn, though they may have trouble keeping their airway open or they may tire out easily trying to breathe.

Another vent setting involves the patient breathing as much as they can, and the ventilator serving as a backup. If the person doesn't take a breath in a set number of seconds, the ventilator gives them one. This person may survive for a while afterwards, but would likely eventually die due to high levels of carbon dioxide in their blood. It might be any time between an hour or less to several days before the person's death.

The highest setting on most vents still allows the patient to initiate breaths, but every breath they take is assisted to ensure it is a complete breath, and the machine also delivers a set number of breaths every minute. Someone who is dependent on this mode may pass within minutes of being taken off the vent and likely wouldn't live more than an hour or so, dying from lack of oxygen or buildup of carbon dioxide.

Another life support device is a cooling blanket. When certain parts of the brain are damaged (such as the parts that are damaged after a long period without oxygen), the person cannot control their own temperature, and they tend to get extremely overheated by their own metabolism. Temps can get into the 110's *F, which kills pretty quickly. Fever-reducing drugs are not effective. This would also be someone who could last anywhere from an hour or so to a couple of days, though their brain would quickly become more and more damaged during this time.

The least intensive form of life support would be the provision of food or water through an NG tube- a tube that goes from the nose to the stomach and allows medications and tube feed (water and basic nutrition) to be delivered to the stomach. If this is withdrawn and IV fluids are not provided, the person may live a week or more before dying of dehydration. If they are, for some reason, given IV fluids, they may live months.

Note that a person may be on a combination of modalities (like it would be weird for someone to be on a ventilator without an NG tube).

-Ross ( @macgyvermedical)

[eretzyisrael]

Hamas Must Be Destroyed

Whoever has a gun should prepare it, and whoever does not have a gun should prepare his cleaver, axe, or knife. – Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, 30 April 2022.

Nothing characterized Jewish life everywhere during the two millennia of diaspora more than the contingency of it. There were good times, bad times, and worse times, but unless some non-Jewish power protected them temporarily – and it was always temporary – anything could be done to the Jews. Their property could be stolen, their women violated, their homes burned. Over and over.

In her article Nostalgia for a Slaughterhouse, Phyllis Chesler contrasts the reality of the turn-of-the-century shtetel with the sentimental picture of Anatevka presented in Fiddler on the Roof, and quotes researcher Irina Astashkevich’s description of the second day of the pogrom, after the Cossacks and the Jews’ gentile neighbors had already stolen everything of value:

The carnival of violence, complete with scenes of torture, rape, and murder, played out on the second day of the pogrom as ‘celebratory street theater.’ Pogrom perpetrators purposefully drove Jews into the streets and hunted down their victims … acts of torture took place in front of an audience of pogrom perpetrators, the local population, and frightened Jews. The ritualized violence reiterated the previous pogroms, but often in a more grotesque and horrifying form. The elderly couple, Yudko Gurshevoy, aged seventy-five, and his wife Bruckha, mad with fear, were stripped naked and forced to run through the streets as hunted animals, cheered by the Cossacks. Pogromschiki bayoneted their victims, careful not to kill them, but to leave the wounded to suffer and bleed to death in agony that lasted sometimes for several days. Elderly parents were left to die, while their families were not allowed to help them … Pogromschiki made sure that all the apothecaries were wrecked, and there was no medical assistance; the only remaining non-Jewish medical practitioner was strictly prohibited to provide any help to the Jews on pain of death.

Astashkevich notes that in the Pale of Settlement during the period 1917-21 there were “over a thousand pogroms in about five hundred localities.” Anyone who has even a sight acquaintance with Jewish history knows that similar happenings were common everywhere and at any time in the Christian and Muslim worlds that the Jews inhabited, always as a powerless minority. Blood libels that triggered anti-Jewish riots were common during the medieval period, and have continued into the 21st century.

In June of 1941, Jews had lived in Iraq for more than two millennia, since the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The Babylonian Talmud was composed here. But here too, Jewish life was always contingent. And in June of 1941 it came to an end in the Farhud, a bloody pogrom inspired by a pro-Nazi regime. Official estimates of the number of Jews murdered are in the range of 100-200, but more recent evidence indicates that the true number may be closer to 1000. The number of raped and maimed is unknown. In any event, it was the beginning of the end for the Jewish presence in Iraq; and in 1952 almost all of the remaining Jews were ransomed by the Israeli government and airlifted to Israel, forced to leave behind (as always) their possessions, including businesses and real estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The custom, indeed the institution, that it is always open season on the Jewish people, reached its zenith with the Holocaust, which industrialized the impoverishment, torture, degradation and murder of Jews. We were treated like insects, even exterminated using a product originally intended for fumigation.

The phrase “Never Again,” if it means anything, should mean that the state of imminent victimhood in which Jews have found themselves since 586 BCE must never be allowed to recur. One of the purposes of establishing the Jewish state, which required a massive sacrifice of Jewish lives, was to accomplish this.

But we have not succeeded. Pogroms occur even here in the Jewish state, small scale ones that we call “terrorism,” and larger ones like the “riots” of May 2021 when our Israeli Arab neighbors attacked Jews in the streets, burned their homes and synagogues, and murdered them. On a continuing basis, the small-scale terrorism of rock-throwing and crime-as-jihad happen every single day, wherever Jews and Arabs come into contact with one another.

From time to time, the Jewish state is attacked with barrages of deadly rockets, which kill just a few Jews each time, because the vaunted Jewish intellect and great chunks of Jewish money have built domes of iron (and now, laser beams) to hide behind while our enemies take their potshots at us. Our carefully measured military responses take exquisite care to protect enemy civilians, and always stop before actually defeating the enemy. And afterwards, we avert our eyes as Gaza receives cash from Qatar and cement from Israel, ostensibly to help civilian victims of the conflict, but in fact is used by Hamas to dig more tunnels and build more rockets.

All our wars since 1948 have been, in a political sense, defensive. Even in 1967, when the IDF took control of great swaths of territory, including the heartland of the Land of Israel, one of the first acts of our leadership afterwards was to return the heart of the heartland, the Temple Mount, to Muslim Arab control. In following years, instead of a massive drive to settle the liberated and conquered lands and to drive our enemies out of them, our politicians tried to find ways to return them to our enemies in return for “peace.”

The message that we have been broadcasting non-stop for the last few decades, and that our enemies have been receiving loud and clear, is that “we will defend ourselves, but only just enough to stop your immediate assault.” So naturally, as soon as they can, they try again. And the same goes for our response to terrorism, both large and small-scale. Apprehended terrorists, even mass murderers, are temporarily incarcerated in institutions that they to a great extent control, while their families are richly rewarded by the Palestinian Authority, with money that comes from Israel, Europe, and the USA.

So yes, the situation of the Jews is better today in Israel than it was in Kishinev in 1903, or Iraq in 1941-52. But the basic nature of our response is the same: pay the ransom if possible, and ward off the blows if not. What we do not do is change the perception of the Jew as the victim-in-waiting. What we do not do is discredit, for once and for all, the idea that it is normal to try to kill Jews.

On the evening of 4 May 2022, a few days after Yahya Sinwar exhorted themto use their knives and axes, two terrorists entered the town of Elad in central Israel, murdered three Jews and injured seven others – with knives and axes, as instructed. This continues a streak of terrorism that began in March in which a total of 19 Israelis (including Druze and Christian Arabs) have been killed by Palestinian terrorists.

This is nothing particularly out of the ordinary. The messages that come from the official media of Hamas and the groups that make up the PLO (which constitutes the Palestinian Authority), is that killing Jews is praiseworthy, murderers are heroes, and that continued violent “resistance” will bring about the removal of the Jews from every bit of the land from the river to the sea. This message also permeates social media, mosques in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (including the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount), the educational systems of the PA and UNRWA, and every aspect of “Palestinian” culture.

It is time, for the first time since the end of the War of Independence, to permanently end the pernicious perception of Jews as appropriate victims. It is time for all of our enemies to understand that killing Jews or even trying to do so is not an option, because the cost will be astronomical for them. It is time to finally actualize the promise inherent in the slogan “Never Again.”

Today we have a golden opportunity to do this, to demonstrate that finally, after more than two millennia, it is not normal to try to kill Jews.

MK Itamar Ben Gvir of the Otzma Yehudit faction, responded to the terror attack in Elad, saying “in a normal country, an Air Force flyover would now be dropping missiles on the house of [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar, who called for attacks with weapons and axes, and killing him. This is how you cut off terrorism.” Some call Ben Gvir an extremist, but numerous other politicians and media personalities agreed with him. The argument against killing Sinwar is that he would be replaced, and terrorism would continue. And Hamas has threatened that if he or any other Hamas official is harmed, they would respond with “immediate war,” including suicide bombings in Israeli cities, like those that took hundreds of Israeli lives during the Second Intifada.

But Israel should assassinate Sinwar tomorrow, and as many of his associates in the leadership of Hamas as possible. And she should preempt the threatened war with a war of her own, on Hamas in Gaza as well as its cells in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and anywhere else they are found. The operation should be carried out in accordance with international law; that is, so that collateral damage to civilian lives and property is proportional to military necessity – as opposed to the previous policy of attempting to achieve military objectives with close to zero civilian casualties.

The operation should have a twofold objective: one goal should be purely military – and it should continue until Hamas (and associated factions like Palestinian Islamic Jihad) in Gaza and Judea and Samaria cease to exist. The other should be in the information arena, to declare to the world that Israel will no longer tolerate attempts to murder Jews. Israel must make it clear to her enemies and allies alike that – as Ben Gvir said – we are a “normal country,” and if you try to murder our citizens, you will pay dearly.

Israel has many enemies, and Hamas is only one. There are many areas in which she has lost the sovereignty so painfully obtained in 1948 and 1967. All of these enemies must be deterred or destroyed, and sovereignty recovered – at the Temple Mount, Joseph’s Tomb, Hevron, and even the Negev and the Galilee. There is a long road to follow to take back what has been given up over the years, and to educate the world that the conditions of diasporic oppression that the State of Israel inherited no longer hold. The destruction of Hamas can be the first step on this journey.

Abu Yehuda

[aphrodite-would-be-proud]

Reading through your wedding post made me so happy, but then I read about Falco's family 😭 Do you think you could write some of your headcannons of you and Reiner watching Falco for a week while his brother goes on a business trip or something. I can only picture by the end of the week that the house is full of the kids because none of them want to go home because Falco misses his brother and hes sad!! 😭😭

I'm so happy you enjoyed it! And that's such a sweet and thoughtful request how could i say no :( my god it sounds like the perfect comfort fic to write and honestly Falco deserves it💛

And the kiddos comforting Falco is a really adorable idea especially since he's the one looking out for everyone and comforting them most of the time, i can only imagine how loved he'd be by them.

Falco spending a week with you and Reiner

{ Reiner x reader | tw:deceased parents tw:neglectful parents | reverse comfort, fluff | modern }

{ "Tales of Enchantment" by Frank O. Salisbury 1874–1962 }

Around 5am, you and Reiner were waiting in the living room, each holding a cup of coffee. In the past days you got a call from Colt, asking if you can take care of Falco for a week, he sounded really apologetic and so you reassured him it's not trouble at all.

Apparently him and Zeke had a work related trip to a far away town, being understaffed in that town and all, the situation was dire and they couldn't refuse without their rating taking a huge hit not to mention morally too. But as a compensation, the company promised a higher pay to make their effort worth it.

You didn't notice the repeated knocking on the door till a couple seconds later, lack of sleep delaying your senses.

Opening it, you were met with an anxious Colt carrying his little brother in his arms, still asleep in his pajamas. Zeke from behind him carrying a couple bags and backpacks, he waved to you with a smile.

As Reiner took Falco in his arms and some of the bags too, you carried his Marvel school backpack and a list Colt made for all the things Falco needed and liked. He seemed to put a lot of effort in it, somethings in it you didn't even know yourself.

While tucking Falco in your bed, Reiner couldn't help but express his worry over Colt working himself to exhausting, both mentally and physically.

Yeah it was only a temporary thing till Colt graduates college and finds a stable good paying job, whilst taking care of his little brother as much as he can. He's been carrying Falco's responsibility on his shoulder since the funeral without a twitch or a complaint.

You think back to all the times you saw Colt, most being for mere minutes when he came to drop off the kids or pick them up just as his classes ended and before his shift at work started, barely having time for himself yet he chose to spend that little remaining free time on Falco and his friends.

You sit next to Reiner on the bed, gently brushing Falco's hair away from his face as he's sound asleep. He always looked up to his brother more than anyone else and would never let anyone talk badly about him.

It's like his own personal superhero.

"Do you think he'll be sad knowing he didn't get to say goodbye before Colt left?" You ask, still looking at Falco.

Reiner thinks for a moment before answering, "probably, but won't show it" he secures the blanket more around Falco, "sometimes I wonder who's more stubborn with showing their emotions, Gabi or Falco."

"I'd say Zofia wins the acting Oscar" you turn the lights off on your way out, "wasn't it for Udo, we wouldn't know how she's feeling half the time."

Around 10am, a very sleepy Falco merges out of the dark bedroom. Making his way to sit between you and Reiner on the couch, while carrying a blanket around him.

He leans into Reiner's hand when he strokes Falco's hair while you secure the blanket around him. Seeming unusual quiet, you and Reiner shared a knowing concerned look.

Offering to make him his favourite food for breakfast got a smiles out of Falco, Reiner even let him choose what shapes he wants his sunny side eggs as.

While he went to cook and prepare food, Falco shyly leans into your lap as if testing the water.

Please assure him it's okay to seek physical comfort from you, wrap your arms around him and he'll be embarrassed at first to ask to sit on your lap but will love it afterwards.

Just don't tell anyone about it okay? It's something his parents used to do when he was little.

When he heard about Gabi coming over today, he seemed to light up. While Udo and Zofia have weekend music lessons they couldn't make it till tomorrow.

While looking away, he asked if you could watch teen titans go with him.

The rest of the day went smoothly after that, Falco was a good kid in general and a really helpful and understanding person. He helped you both with chores and even attempted to cook pancakes.

While it came out burned, don't tell him that! He's really worried so please make him know you loved it and it was super delicious.

You and Reiner even took him to the dogs park nearby, he had pet so many good dogs till he couldn't count, even played fetch with one. After that you got ice cream on the way back.

When Gabi finally arrived, full of energy and enthusiastic about Falco staying over meaning she too will be staying over

All hell broke loose, it's like a switch had been flipped and the well behaved good boy Falco you know was completely weoponised by Gabi as she pulled him into her mischiefs

By himself, Falco is a good kid, well behaved, polite and responsible for his age. But with adding Gabi to the mix? They're a force to be reckon with.

You could see that Reiner was trying his hardest to deny that his closest cousin Gabi, was the bad influence on other kids all along.

You know? The one leading you off a cliff that your moms tells you not to follow? The rebellious kid with very strong opinions and the will to fist fight god? Yeah that one.

Apparently, no one gave Falco the cliff talk yet because he seemed far too eager to follow her to the end of the earth and down that cliff, he'd even jump hand in hand with her just to protect her from the sharp rocks under.

Gabi was actually looking forward to Falco staying over, since either way she'd spend a couple of days with you and Reiner whenever her parents are away or are too busy. She can't handle feeling lonely in the house, it's one of the worst feelings she's ever experienced.

It reached a point that Reiner gave her a copy of the keys, just so she could come in whenever even if you were at work. He too didn't like the idea of her being alone in a house all by herself, yet her parents didn't seem bothered at all.

But now she has a friend to spend the time with!

Falco was finding comfort in the fact that him and Gabi are currently in similar situations, while his was temporarily he felt better knowing he wasn't alone in this.

By the end of the the day, they managed to build a pillow fort in your living room. No one allowed to enter unless they're bearing offerings snacks

Around 10pm, when both of them fall asleep inside the fort. Falco hugging a pillow to his chest while Gabi still had a controller in her hand.

Of course Reiner took some pictures, how could he not? Especially with the way Falco's fingers were tangled with Gabi's as she had cookie crumbs around her mouth.

He also sent it to the groupchat Zeke made, reassuring Colt that Falco is having the time of his life whilst also sharing their adorable cousins with the rest of his friends.

The week went by faster than anyone could notice, good times always fly fast eh?

Each morning you and Reiner would walk Falco to the school bus before watching him sit next to Udo, sending him off with packed lunch and waving as the bus went away.

After school the rest of the kiddos will come with him home, keeping him company and helping him with homework too. They'd make sure to play Videgames right after.

Porco actually took over the duty of taking Zofia and Udo back to their houses, let's just say their mothers didn't like him at all, but reluctantly agreed after Reiner assured them he's a close family friend.

Each day around 6pm, Colt would video call him on his work break, sometimes with Zeke and other times alone. Falco would tell him about his day and Colt would praise him for all the good work he's done, he'd even share stories of his own and remind him to brush his teeth and eat his vegetables.

After each call, Falco will be noticeably more...down. can you blame him? He really misses him brother.

Sit next to him and hug him close please, he really needs it but he can't bring himself to ask for it. Soothe away his worries and don't mention it if his eyes start watering, just pull him against your chest and let him cry his heart out.

On nights he's particularly sad, he'd sneak into your bedroom to sleep between you and Reiner. It's something he used to do back when he was little, he can't help but miss his parents.

It makes him feel safe so make sure to keep a space for him in there always.

Please stroke his hair till he falls asleep like his mother used to do each night, and let him lean against you while watching cartoons like his father did.

You also noticed how...dotting the kiddos are around him during these times.

Gabi is more gentle with him, even willing to play the games he wants instead of hers. She always teams up with him and her words whenever they win make him smile.

Zofia shares her food with him, something so scarce. She gives up her turn on the tv for him and even defends his choice in what to watch if the others complain.

Udo is the one making him space on the school bus and walking with him home too. Helping him with his homework and holding his hand whenever he seemed to get sad.

Udo and Falco are a great emotional support to each other, they're not afraid to speak about their emotions to the other.

And naturally they're the most comforting, with Zofia botteling up her own emotions and Gabi wrestling through it, it's the two of them who work as the group emotional support backbone.

Reiner couldn't stop talking to you about how proud he is of Udo when he saw him comforting Falco these days, you couldn't agree more.

By the end of the week, the three kids were surrounding Falco on the couch as they played Mario karts.

Zofia was threatening to throw hands with whoever threw that blue shell at her making her last place, Gabi was too busy securing her first place spot.

Udo was leaving strategtic traps in his trail while in third place, making Zofia even more frustrated as she fell into every single one.

Falco was racing with Gabi in second place, attempting to push her kart or power through to the finish line.

When the black and white line came into view, Gabi and Falco's karts were separate by mere inches, both of them attempting to outrun the other.

And when Gabi managed to get a hold of the first spot for three seconds, a flying blue shell knocked her away. Making Falco the winner as he crossed the line.

To this day, Gabi doesn't know if which one of Zofia and Udo were the cause of her demise, but oh she will find the traitor and they will pay.

After that intense scene, they all shared a bag of cookies she brought from home! It was animal shaped.

[twomoonstwosuns]

zoom [bonus chapter]

back to you [series masterlist]

pairing: professor!poe dameron x reader

warning: smut (18+), language, fluff

word count: 2.1k

a/n: we can all thank zoom university for this chapter, i hope you like it

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Poe was not prepared to shift his class from in-person to online. 

He had a feeling deep in his gut this could happen. The virus had hit every state in the country and was spreading at an incredibly high rate. Vacations were being refunded, flights canceled…yours and Poe’s annual spring break trip to Kes’ one of them. It sucked, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Everything was closing down - restaurants, retailers, movie theaters…soon it would be the universities. Spending spring break at home gave Poe time to get his classes online so he’d have something to teach his students when classes resumed. 

You were a week and a half into working from home when Poe got the news about a temporary campus shutdown. He was told that classes would be completely online for two weeks following the end of spring break, but the rapid rise in cases and declining hospital capacity made it unsafe and President Organa made the decision that classes would stay online until the end of the semester. The only one who had been truly thrilled about this decision was Beebs. 

To say it was a little bit of struggle for Poe would be an understatement. He hated doing things on the fly; he liked to be prepared. He also loved being in the classroom with his students. Zoom University took that away from him, but at least he still had a job. And for that he was grateful. 

Your job offered a little more leniency, though furlough rumors that were just whispers at the virtual water cooler were becoming more audible each day that passed. With just a couple of meetings a week, both with your creative team and one-on-one with your boss, you were pretty much on your own. That meant you were able to get up and move around while you were working. You rotated through different rooms in your brand new house, but more often than not you ended up across from Poe at the dining room table with your headphones in. 

You’d sometimes crash his classes when you needed a break from work or when you were bored because you were done with work. You’d make faces at him, write something funny on a whiteboard or notebook and hold it up for him to read, or obscenely lick a lollipop or spoon. Even though your college career had come to an end, you were still hot for teacher and when you sat across from him and watched him teach with the enthusiasm you admired, you couldn’t stop your mind from wandering back to the dirty thoughts you had about him when you were his student. 

You also wondered just how far you could act on those dirty thoughts and one warm April day fresh into being furloughed gave you the perfect opportunity. 

Walking into the kitchen, your bare legs caught Poe’s attention from the dining room. The hem of his t-shirt reached your upper thigh and you made sure to stretch up on your tiptoes to grab a cup from the very top shelf just so he’d get a flash of your sexy barely there black lace underwear. The complete sentences he’d been talking in were disrupted and he stumbled over his words as the sight of you took over. You poured yourself a glass of water, leaning against the counter as you took a sip and stretching your legs out.

“Babe?” Poe temporarily muted himself, leaning just far enough out of the frame to lick his lips and stare at your legs. “Can I have a glass of water?”

The little sway you put in your hips continued to keep him a little unfocused as you grabbed another glass and filled it with water. You set it down beside his computer and he took a huge gulp of it before looking back at his computer when one of his student’s grabbed his attention. 

“What exactly do you want out of this essay? The question seem a little vague.”

As he started to answer her question, Poe failed to see you slip underneath the table. Your hands tugging on his sweatpants made him gasp and his jaw drop ever so slightly. You shot him a flirty smile and put your finger over your lips. His head snapped back up as he remembered his class was watching him. 

“Sorry, um…m-my dog licked my foot and I didn’t know he was under the table.”

You had to bite back a laugh to keep from revealing his lie as the girls in his class audibly swooned. Beebs was currently on the living room couch taking his early afternoon nap, though he had made an appearance on camera before due to some incessant barking over a couple of squirrels. You bit your lip to keep from making any noise as you dipped your hand under the band of his sweats. Poe visibly gulped as you wrapped your hand around him. 

“The, uh…the prompts are meant to be broad so you can, um…” He let out a breath as you pumped him slowly. “Are you…h-how many of you are having trouble with the prompts?”

A few of his students raised their hands and he swallowed hard. His voice shook as he tried his best to not concentrate at the pleasure he was beginning to feel from your hand. 

“O-Okay…um…” Poe nearly choked on his words at the touch of your tongue on the tip of his cock. Your mouth suddenly enveloped him, head bobbing at a teasing pace. 

“Sorry, um…whatever comes to mind when you think of the question is what I want your essay to show.” He was powering through, focusing completely on the twenty pairs of eyes that were on him. “Send me an email with your ques—“

His breath caught in his throat as his cock slid closer to the back of your throat. He cleared his throat and stuck his hand in your hair, grabbing it in a vice grip and holding your head in place. “—questions. If you want to attach a rough draft, you can and I can give you some feedback. Sound okay?”

His students collectively nodded and you hollowed your cheeks and sucked, making Poe squirm in his seat. 

“Perfect. Alright, um…I-I have to prep for my next class so I-I’ll see you all on Thursday.”

He loosened his grip on your hair and you started moving your head again. Whatever willpower he had left he used to leave the meeting, a loud groan erupting from deep in his chest when he knew he was in the clear. He threw his head back as he touched the back of your throat again, pulling another helpless moan from him. 

“That was—“ He shifted again in his seat and you held his thighs to keep him still, the way your mouth was taking him so deep making him squirm. “Fuck baby, that was cruel.”

You popped off of him and smirked, running your tongue along the length of him. “Was it though?”

Poe chuckled and moaned again as you took him back into your mouth. His hands slipped into your hair and he looked down at you. Your face was half hidden by the table and despite being in your own home, the whole thing felt erotic and a little bit porny. He tensed in his seat and his breathing picked up and it was then that you decided to release him and come out from under the table.

“Why’d you stop?” Poe asked as he pushed his chair back from the table. You eyed the way his cock laid against his lower stomach. 

“You have class in fifteen minutes.”

Smirking, Poe pulled you towards him by the front of your shirt, grabbing your thighs and moving you into his lap. 

“We need to make this quick then.” The dark, lust-blown look in his eyes showed he was serious and he laughed at the look on your face. “Don’t look so surprised, you started this…now I want you to finish it.”

You responded by rubbing your clothed core over his cock. He grabbed your hip and held you still as he pulled your panties to the side. Grabbing his cock and giving him a few more pumps, you lined him up with your entrance and sunk down onto him, seating yourself in his lap and taking him all the way in on the first pass. 

“You are so fucking wet.” He exhaled deeply, the feeling of being inside of you a sensation he’d never get tired of. A smirk crossed your face as you started to grind against him. 

“Its a turn on watching you squirm.”

You cupped his cheeks and kissed him hotly, your tongue sliding into his mouth as you moved up and down in his lap. He swallowed your moans, his hands squeezing your ass before moving up to your hips and guiding you. You tore your lips away from him to moan out a drawn out “fuck!” as he hit that spot that made your toes curl, your head falling back in complete ecstasy. 

“You gotta move faster than that if you want to come, sweetheart.” His words, deep and breathy, were felt across your lips. “We’re finishing this before my class starts whether you come or not.”

“I could just go into the other room and finish myself off.”

He kissed down to your neck, a breathy moan coming from you as he sucked a hickey onto it.

“Not a fucking chance.”

The chair beneath you rocked as you bounced in his lap, the tips of your toes on the carpet giving you leverage. Poe suddenly grabbed your thighs and stood up, ignoring your yelp of surprise and setting you down onto the table. He pushed his laptop away and his glass of water fell to the ground with a quiet thud. Either he didn’t notice or he didn’t care as he snapped his hips against yours at a punishing speed. A cry of pleasure left your lips at the sudden change in ferocity and you nearly jumped when his thumb made contact with your clit. His free hand caught your calf and kept your leg up around his waist, giving himself the perfect angle to drive deeper into you. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head and your back arched off of the table as you dug your fingers into his back. His name fell from your lips with each brush of his cock against your g-spot. 

Poe came with a loud moan, his resolve disappearing in hopes that he could get you off first. But you weren’t far behind, his sloppy thrusts and quick movements against your clit enough to send you toppling over the edge. Your body convulsed with pleasure and a gentle bite to your neck made you gasp. Both of you were breathless as his thrusts slowed, eventually coming to a stop. He lifted you once again, his cock staying inside you as he moved back into his chair. 

“How am I supposed to face my class on Thursday?” A soft smile gracing his handsome face as he looked at the mess he made of you, your cheeks flushed with exertion and hair falling into your face. “They’re not stupid, they totally knew what was going on.”

A breathless giggle left your lips as he cupped your cheek. “That’s for you to figure out. It better be good though, because I doubt they bought the Beebs excuse.”

He chuckled as he kissed you gently, the kind that let butterflies loose in your stomach. Your hand covered the one resting on your cheek and you pulled it away to look at the time. “Three minutes.”

“Perfect timing,” he said as you carefully stood up and readjusted your panties. He tucked himself back into his pants and grabbed his computer to log into his next class.

“We’re masters at quickies,” you said as you leaned down and kissed him once more before heading towards the bathroom to clean yourself up. “Have fun in class!”

Chances were very high that Poe would get you back for this sometime in the next week or so. The way you two teased each other, you knew he’d try to hold out as long as possible and catch you completely off guard. It was such a fun and simple way to mix things up in lockdown. After all, you and Poe were practically experts in bunkering down at home, unable to go out in public and having to find ways to entertain yourselves. 

You supposed you could actually thank Hux for that. 

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[fangirlshrewt97]

Epiphanies and a Roof Over Their Heads

Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)

Pairing: Nile Freeman & Nicolo di Genova

Read on AO3

                                                           ///

Nicky hummed as he sipped his hot chocolate, the warmth seeping into his bones, making him melt further into the armchair. A crash of thunder startled him upright, eyes blinking at the subsequent flash of lightning. Sighing, Nicky shifted until he was once again comfortably reclining in the arm chair, one foot on the broad window sill. Closing his eyes again, Nicky allowed his other senses to take over. The taste of warm chocolate still stinging his tongue, the faint strums of music from the spare bedroom Nile had converted into a temporary studio, the plushness of the armchair molding to his body. The nearly overwhelming scent of petrichor and wet trees wafting in from the open window.

They had arrived at the safehouse in Indonesia a few days before, and were waiting for the rest of the team to join them. Andy and Quynh had said they would stop by Vietnam, so it would likely be a week before they showed up. Joe and Booker had said they were en route and would try to be there in a couple days. Given that it was monsoon season, and a cyclone had been spotted, Nicky thought they would probably arrive with Andy and Quynh.

Lifting his other leg to cross his ankles on the window sill, Nicky sipped away at the drink in his hand, just enjoying the rain pouring outside their house, enveloping them in this phantom bubble of isolation from the rest of the world. He had always found peace in the rain, felt like the water washed away all the troubles of the world, at least temporarily. If, of course, they were not forced to trek through treacherous jungles or muddy hills during the downpour.

After some time he heard the faint music cut off, a door opening softly. He took another sip of drink. He tilted his head in Nile’s direction when she finally peaked over the head of the large chair, smiling softly at her sheepish expression.

“Sorry,” she said, “I wasn’t sure if you had fallen asleep.”

“It’s ok sorellina. I was not sleeping.”

Nile came around the armchair, an eyebrow raised as she saw him sprawled comfortably in his perch. “So, what are you doing?”

“Watching the rain.” Nicky replied, one corner of his lips raising in a faint smirk, as Nile let out annoyed groan.

“I thought we said no more dad jokes Nicky!” Nile said petulantly.

Nicky chuckled. “Si, Si, sorry. Would you like some hot chocolate?”

At that Nile brightened. “Yes!”

“There is some in the kitchen, pour yourself some and come join me.” Nicky said, gesturing in the direction of the other armchair.

Nile nodded before disappearing from sight.

Nicky took another sip of the hot chocolate, letting it rest on his tongue for a moment, until the sweetness became too much, and swallowed. Nile was humming happily as she made her way over to him, one hand clutching a mug, the other maneuvering the armchair beside Nicky’s. Nicky placed his mug on the windowsill before helping Nile with the chair. Once she was comfortably settled, he retook his position. Nile opted to curl up in her chair, letting out a small groan of satisfaction as she first tasted the chocolate.

“Swear to god Nicky, I have no idea how you do it, but you make the best stuff.” Nile said, voice slightly fair away.

Nicky beamed at her, a different warmth blossoming in his chest as his dear friend enjoyed one of his creations. “Grazie Nile, we got lucky I still had some of the chocolate I had bought in Belgium. I was planning on making hot chocolate for all of us, but then the call came in.”

“And it’s difficult to make hot chocolate when you are sneaking around the warehouse district of Nice?” Nile asked wryly.

Nicky winked at her, making her snort. Nile leaned her head against the side of the armchair. “You know, I think out of all the different weathers, rain is the strangest to me?”

Nicky tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“We have all kinds of weather in Chicago, but we don’t get that much rain. And then Afghanistan, I mean. It’s Afghanistan, I got used to the heat. But rain like this?” Nile gestured at the window, where the rain was still falling in such strength they could barely see their compound’s wall. “I’ve never really seen it before.”

Nicky made a noise of agreement. “Genoa got a lot of rain. I always liked the rainy days best.”

“Yeah?” Nile asked, that curious wonder still in her voice. She still relished any opportunity to hear about their early years. None of the team had a problem indulging her.

“Si. I always found it very peaceful.”

As if to contradict him, a flash of lightning whited out the world before a rumble of thunder roared overhead.

“Yes, very peaceful.” Nile mumbled into her cup.

“Of course that rain was not quite like this. We had our bad storms, I remember the fishermen were always tense when they expected bad weather.  But for me rain offered me a kind of escape.”

“Escape how?”

Nicky shrugged, taking another sip as he sorted out the words in his head. “Escape like freedom. Like there was no one else except me when it was raining. Rain meant mud and extra chores, laundry that took twice as long to dry. But it also left the earth smelling of life, the flowers seemed to blossom brighter in the aftermath.”

“I can see that.” Nile said after a minute. “So. Did you ever have a epic romantic kiss in the rain?”

Nicky choked slightly on his drink as Nile giggled next to him. “Epic kiss?”

“Yeah, you know how in the movies, one of the romantic scenes is if the two people find each other after having had a fight or something, and then share this huge  kiss while like the music swells around them?”

Nicky chuckled as he shook his head. “I can’t recall anything quite like that.”

Nile pouted at him, making him snort.

“There was one instance though…” he trailed, enjoying how Nile scooted forward in her chair. Nicky closed his eyes, trying to bring the memory to the forefront.

“I must have been around 100, 110? Joe and I had only recently met up with Andy and Quynh, and had been travelling through Europe when Quynh said she wanted to introduce us to her homeland. So, we headed towards Vietnam. It was my first time so far East, and the sights felt like a different world. I had read and heard the stories from the three of them, but nothing quite compares to seeing the lands in person. We got stuck near Bangladesh? Or maybe Assam?

Anyways, we had to stop because the monsoon season hit, and both Andy and Quynh insisted the trip would be more enjoyable when we weren’t soaked to the bone. We found an abandoned house to camp out in for the season, and went about getting it ready. But still, nothing could have prepared me for the ways the skies opened, the way all the water in heaven seemed to fall out at once.”

“Must have been quite the sight.” Nile said softly.

Nicky nodded. “I don’t have the words to describe it. I used to stand by the door for a long time, just watching how the rain seemed to literally fall to the earth, crashing against the soft ground. Finally, maybe three or four days later? I decided I wanted to feel the rain.”

“Feel? Like walk in the rain?”

Nicky nodded once. “I had done it sometimes in Genoa, when I was a little boy. Stood alone in the rain, felt the water wash over me. It left me clean, like it didn’t just wash over my body, but my soul itself. I hadn’t done it in years, but the urge was so strong. When I saw the clouds darken, I stepped out of the house, walking just a few feet away.”

Nicky opened his eyes, training them on Nile, who was staring at him with an intense focus. She made a noise, encouraging him to continue.

“Standing under that monsoon rain. If the Genoan rain seemed to wash my soul, this one seemed to remake me. Each drop hurt as it fell on me, but it felt…like a benediction. I had caused so much death I could still see the blood on my hands. I had finally accepted I loved Joe, and was beginning to accept he mattered more to me than my faith’s claim that loving him was signing my soul for an eternity of damnation. But standing in that rain. None of that mattered. The world didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. And it was ok.

I’m not sure how long I was there, I had fallen to me knees at some point. I was brought back to myself when Joe touched me though. He was shouting something, I couldn’t hear what, but I remember the look in his eyes. I think he thought I had finally lost my mind. I just started laughing, harder than I ever had. It didn’t help ease his concern, but the rain, it had washed me of all the guilt I had been carrying. I pulled him down with me and kissed him. It felt like I was doing it in front of God. It felt like He was telling me it was ok. That I was allowed to live, allowed to love this perfect man I did not feel I deserved but would fight the world to keep by my side.”

The only noise in the room for some minutes after Nicky finished his story was the drumming of the rain.

“Wow.” Nile said finally.

Nicky huffed. “Does that qualify?”

Nile nodded, laughing brightly. “Definitely. Although, for most of the characters the epiphany comes before or after the kiss, not during.”

Nicky shrugged. “Maybe that’s because you can’t see the character’s thoughts as they are kissing.”

Nile nodded her head. “Fair enough.”

Nicky tilted his empty mug towards her. “Care for a refill?”

Nile nodded, getting up and taking his mug. “I’ll fill yours, you look far to cozy to disturb.”

Nicky grinned. “Thank you Nile.”

Nile returned with two full mugs. Nicky grabbed his own, only to pause when Nile held out her own. “To epiphanies in the rain.”

Nicky laughed. “And what epiphany have you had?”

“That I do not want to be a poor sap who has to walk in these conditions. Ever.” Nile said firmly, bobbing her head.

Nicky laughed harder, his mug shaking slightly. “To epiphanies and a roof over our head.”

Nile beamed. “To epiphanies and a roof over our head.”

After they toasted their mugs, they each took a long drink, letting out identical sighs of satisfaction. Giggling, Nile waved her mug. “Thanks for the story Nicky, between that, my art, and this wonderful hot chocolate, I am ready for a nap, and Mother Nature has a great soundtrack on. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Sogno di oro, habibti.” Nicky told her as Nile walked away.

Once she was out of sight, Nicky lifted both his feet onto the windowsill, and leaned back on the armchair. Setting the empty mug on the floor, he carefully spread the blanket he had curled beneath his back over his legs. A nap sounded quite nice indeed. And if he could not fall asleep next to Joe, at least he would fall asleep to the sound of rain.

[scripttorture]

You've said on this blog before that for something to count as sensory deprivation, 4 or more (I think) major senses have to be removed. Is there a word for torture where only one is removed? E.G., a solitary confinement cell in pitch darkness, so that a non-blind character loses access to sight. And how would that complicate the normally documented effects of solitary confinement?

Generally most sources or interviews describe the specific conditions they’re talking about rather then apply a specific word. I tend to lump it in with poor prison conditions and neglect, making sure to specify exactly what was going on. I don’t think there is a specific word.

 This sort of thing definitely happens. Other variants I’ve heard of include designing prison uniforms as all-covering in order to limit a person’s sense of touch and making prisoners wear ear protectors to limit hearing/communication.

 I haven’t seen any systematic studies on this in the way I have for solitary confinement. My impression is that pitch black cells in particular were more common historically then they are now.

 This stuff does still happen but it’s a lot rarer then it used to be. Because of that I’m not entirely sure if a systematic study would be possible. I’m not sure if you’d find the numbers necessary for it.

 Pitch black cells in particular are very well documented historically. But historical sources tend to be poorer sources for long term effects on survivors. (By which I mean most historical sources on torture I’ve read just… don’t contain any information in that regard. I’m not sure there was much interest in follow up on what happened to people.)

 So we are in ‘educated guess’ territory. I’m putting this together based on what information there is on solitary and a small number historic interviews with people who were kept in darkness.

 Generally I’d expect it to mean an earlier on-set of symptoms and more severe symptoms manifesting earlier. I say this because in general that seems to be the effect of poor prison conditions when someone is kept in solitary confinement.

 I’ve seen a couple of reports tentatively linking worsening eyesight in solitary to poor prison conditions but I don’t know enough about the eye to say whether a complete lack of lighting would have this effect. And that applies to a lot of the variations I’ve described: I’m not a doctor so I’m not sure what limiting some of these senses over a long period does in a physical sense. Psychologically it’s an added stress which makes solitary more harmful. But there could be a lot of physical damage in these scenarios that I just… don’t know enough about the human body to unpack.

 That’s one of the difficulties with rarer tortures; it can be hard to figure out what the physical damage would be and why.

 My instinct, based mostly on my own experience with lab safety gear, is that how a sense is restricted will make a difference in terms of the lasting effects. For instance using my example of limiting hearing: if you wear ear plugs every day all day your ears will hurt*. A lot. And I think you would eventually start to see lasting damage to the ears and hearing.

 In contrast ear defenders don’t hurt the inside of the ear. But they are heavier and can get caught on things, which can lead to pain in the neck and shoulders.

 Similarly with the example of gloves, depending on the material you can see some pretty major skin irritation with constant use. My hands currently resemble a shedding lizard and this is a low-glove use week. That could cause knock on effects (infections for example).

 So I think there could be different physical symptoms depending on how the character’s vision is restricted. No light is different to very low light and both are different to blindfolds or bags over the head.

 Get a clear idea of exactly what is happening in your story and how. Consult Scriptmedic's archives. And think through whether there are any knock on problems or practical issues associated with the method. For instance if this character can't see they're going to be more likely to trip (at least at first) and they're going to have more difficulty navigating their cell.

 This could lead to more bruises, scrapes and cuts. It might also mean it takes them longer to eat their meals and it would probably make it more difficult for them to keep their cell clean. (Imagine dropping one cherry tomato in the kitchen and picture how difficult it would be to find it without stepping on it if you're blind.)

 Those effects apply to every method that takes away a character's sight. But a hood over the head for long periods can also restrict breathing. Think about whether a particular method has those sorts of individual knock on effects.

 Circling back to the psychological effects, this is basically an added risk factor in a solitary confinement scenario. This typically looks like symptoms manifesting earlier and becoming more severe more quickly.

 Based on the few historical sources I've seen over the years feelings of helplessness seem particularly prominent, whether the victims were in solitary or not. I can't say from any of the sources I've seen whether any other symptoms are 'more likely'. It's difficult to tell from what's there. I've seen a few people today theorise that lack of stimulation (ie dark cell conditions, lack of sound etc) could make hallucinations and psychosis in solitary more likely. I think that's possible, we know that true sensory deprivation causes hallucinations (sometimes very quickly), but I also don't think we have enough evidence to say for sure.

 Overall if you want to write something like this I’d suggest looking up resources to do with coping with disability. Because effectively what you’re talking about is rendering a character (temporarily) disabled and throwing them in solitary at the same time. Learning how to navigate it and processing it, I think it would probably be a similar process for your character. They're going to have to learn to live with the limitations that have been placed on them, even if they are temporary.

 Coming to terms with disability can be a long, emotional, stressful process. Having it happen in captivity, without support or access to other disabled people, that would make it more stressful and more difficult. Depression in the months after becoming disabled is relatively common. For a lot of people it's also temporary, a depressive episode rather then something that will last a life time.

 All of this would mix with the stresses and psychological damage of solitary itself.

 Take a look at the masterpost. Read through Shalev's sourcebook which you can find linked in the sources page for the masterpost.

 Decide what symptoms you're interested in and what kind of severity level you're comfortable with writing. Remember that with poor prison conditions this character will be showing more symptoms earlier and they'll reach a more serious stage more quickly. Work backwards from that to figure out how long they could reasonably be confined.

 If the time frame doesn't fit you're story (you are looking at some pretty serious long term effects after a few weeks) then consider changing the scenario. You could make the cell conditions better and not have anything limiting the character's senses. You could also have the character share their cell periodically, giving a scenario where the character isn’t in solitary for the entire time they’re imprisoned.

 They’d still have lasting symptoms. They’d still be going through a really awful experience. But it would help you to realistically mitigate some of the damage.

 I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*Making large batches of liquid drug formulations, or the liquid base that a drug is mixed into, requires some very noisy equipment. Better facilities tend to supply fitted ear protectors but ear plugs are still very common. And if you’re making 50 litres of a formula every day for a week… it has an effect.

[schweidens]

hold me tight ; pt 2

pairings: miya atsumu x GN reader, miya osamu x GN reader

warnings: milk manga timeskip spoiler for osamu! and it’s all fluff

format: headcanons

a/n: sorry this took so long :(( I was really unsatisfied with what I initially wrote for osamu so I rewrote it three times jdjssj

miya atsumu

- look, atsumu’s kind of a brat sometimes. if you’re clingy and needy in public, he’ll be a massive tease and never really give you the attention you deserve. but once you’re at home, atsumu becomes far more doting and touchy

- this meanie enjoys watching you beg for him to cuddle you okay

- the inarizaki vbc were holding extended practices due to the upcoming interhigh, and you wanted nothing but to head home with atsumu.

- throughout the practice, he had managed to dodge every single act of affection you attempted to pelt on him

- an attempted hug was interrupted by his sudden bathroom break, an attempted kiss on the cheek was cut short by atsumu tripping on thin air, and so on

- by the time the boys were finishing up, you were irked to no end and desperate for atsumu to come to you

- when he walks out of the gym, he’s smug and satisfied knowing that he’s left you desperate

- “you really missed me that much, y/n?” atsumu smirks

- and as much as you want to smack him in the face and say no, you run into his open arms, pulling his body to yours tightly and fisting chunks of his shirt in your grasp.

- you could feel atsumu’s heavy breath on the side of your head, as you rested you cheek against his defined chest

- “‘tsumu. you. are. such. an. ass.” you mumble, jabbing a finger in his stomach with each word.

- atsumu winces in pain for just a split second, before looking down with the same smug expression again. “but you love this ass, don’t you?”

- when you only give an angry grumble as a sign of defeat, atsumu laughs loudly

- suddenly, you feel atsumu pull away and you see him crouching down. “c’mon, let’s go home.”

- overjoyed, you immediately jump onto his back, latching your arms around his shoulder and neck and feeling his hands grip the underside of your thighs tightly

- atsumu’s a softie on the inside, afterall

miya osamu

- its no surprise that osamu is a big fan of skinship. he loves all the hugs and cuddles and will not hesitate to initiate pda (it makes atsumu jealous)

- that being said, you would only have to desperately try to catch his attention on special occasions

- Onigiri Miya was closing up temporarily due to the upcoming olympic game in tokyo; you and osamu had planned to take a couple weeks off work to cheer for atsumu

- you slumped your chin onto the counter as you watched your boyfriend wrap up the last orders of the night. it had been an extremely hectic day, with extra orders coming in from the regulars who had heard of the shop’s temporary closure.

- osamu had been hustling around all day, productivity tenfold then usual, making the most of his time.

- unfortunately, this also meant that you hadn’t received much affection from him today. “‘samu, it’s almost closing time.” you whine softly. “i’ve missed you today.”

- osamu, now wiping the kitchen desktops, nodded and sent a soft smile your way. “i know, baby, i’ve missed you too. but after i get all this done, we’ll get two whole weeks to ourselves.”

- before he knew it, you had snuck behind him unnoticed, and you quickly locked your arms around his torso, nuzzling your face on his back

- letting out a sigh of content, you close your eyes, savouring the intimacy of holding osamu in your embrace

- “y/n, i just need to finish mopping up the floors and i’ll be done.”

- “then take me with you, ‘samu. i’m gonna be stuck to you like glue from now on. if you want to mop, you’ll have to take me with you!” you gleefully laugh in a joking manner

- what you didn’t expect was for osamu to flip you around and slide an arm under your waist, scooping you up.

- “you’re right, this can wait. there are more important things to do right now”

- why does this sound smutty i’m sorry

requests are open! check my rules before requesting~

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 196

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

“You’re also dating Miss Rose?” Glynda asked. “Aren’t you a lucky man.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me. Am I? With everything you know about me?"

"Well…" she didn't have a ready retort.

"Anyway, there just isn’t room in the dorm for everyone. I’ll be buying a house out at Patch and flying in to commute everyday.”

“Is your Mover rating that high?”

“Yeah. It is. And Ruby and Weiss both want kids and there’s no way that will fly in the dorms here.”

“So you’re keeping this job?”

“Looks like it. Ruby and Weiss both want me to so I don’t really have a choice.”

“It does have benefits.”

“They like how safe it is for me. Compared to the sort of work I could be doing it’s really incredibly safe. And the pay is good enough to raise our family, coupled with our savings.”

“But Ruby Rose needs a place to stay while you house shop?”

“An extra dorm, maybe? If one is free. I don’t want to impose and I can make other arrangements if I have to. I’d like her and Weiss to be close though while we shop and plan our wedding.”

“You’re engaged to them?”

“Only recently.”

“You didn’t mention any of this whenever I brought up team RWBY,” Glynda smirked.

“I… tend to keep that sort of thing private. It’s not something I run around bragging about.”

“But you probably could.”

“Look… I could also rip a person in half. Probably shouldn’t do that. Or brag about that just because I can. Probably shouldn’t brag about my relationships either.”

“Those are the same thing to you?”

“Well, they’re both something I probably shouldn’t do. Occasionally the situation merits it. I have two fiancés. That’s pretty slick. They’re both beautiful girls who want my children. They like me more than I like me. That’s nuts.”

Glynda laughed at me. “You poor, poor man. How will you survive a dual pregnancy?”

“Maybe keep my dorm open here…”

“No. You have to pay the piper,” she laughed some more. “I’m glad you have this. I was worried when you told me about your experiences that you had no good things tethering you to this world. I’m glad that isn’t the case. You lost so much. It’s good that you have some bright lights in your life to keep you strong and happy. It’s far too easy to give into despair without something like that. It did weigh on my mind. What would I really do to stop you if the worst should pass? But you have these other hooks pulling you to the world besides your work. I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you…” I trailed off. “I hope we never have to answer the question of stopping me. I hope it never comes to that. But I’m glad that you were preparing yourself. It makes me feel a little safer. That’s one of the perks of this job really. You. You probably stand the best chance of getting in my way.”

“But you don’t think I could stop you.”

“Maybe that will change. But no, I don’t think you can. That scares me.”

“I’ll get you the keys to another dorm next to yours. Best of luck with the house shopping and wedding.”

“Thanks.”

“Miss Rose’s presence won’t impede your work, will it?”

“I don’t think so. Our attempts to find a good antipsychotic are more likely to disrupt my work than Ruby is.”

“But that’s important and you should do it.”

“Yeah. It’s important and I really need to do it. But it’s hard. Have you ever been on that sort of medication?”

“No, not me. I was a little depressed after Beacon fell but not so much that I required medication.”

“Yeah. It’s difficult to describe exactly what those meds are like. They change you. They change the way you think and function. Every aspect of your life just becomes slightly twisted and wrong. The way you remember stuff and feel emotions and think in general just becomes slightly off. And that’s the goal. To find the right twist of yourself that causes you to be more stable. But it’s a fumbling and blind watchmaker. They have your genetics which can show them which meds might work. But you still have to try them and that takes months. It seriously takes a long time to go up on a given med, see if it works, and go back down. And your goal is just to survive and get through the day while that happens.”

“Well, nobody has reported any problems with your teaching ever since you started a new batch. So I don’t see that as a problem. I wish you the best of luck in finding the right medication combination.”

“Thank you again.”

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“You got an extra dorm room?” Ruby asked. “Who is going to want to sleep there? The other two will be snuggling up in this dorm and one other person will be left out in the cold.”

“He obviously planned for himself to be the odd one out,” Weiss interpreted.

“What?”

“Come on. He meant for us to be together and for himself to be out in the cold.”

“That’s so like him. I want to pull my hair out.”

“It’s temporary,” I cut in. “Just while you guys find a house you like out in Patch.”

“So it’s true. You meant for you to be the one out,” Ruby glowered.

“Temporarily,” I reminded. “Come on. There just isn’t room here.”

“I don’t like it,” Ruby said.

“Neither do I,” Weiss agreed.

“Then find a house you like fast and buy all the furnishing you want.”

“What’s our budget look like for that?” Ruby asked.

“Something in the ballpark of two point five million,” Weiss informed her. “That leaves plenty for the honeymoon and wedding and a decent amount of savings. Jaune’s making something like two hundred thousand a year here.”

“Well that should be fine then. We’ll have our pick of houses. We can even build one.”

“If you want to wait that long,” Weiss interjected.

“Oh. That’s true. Jaune will insist on being out in the cold that whole time. He’s such a goofball.”

“I’m right here,” I pointed out.

“Ah? So you are,” Weiss observed. “But for how long?”

“Um…” I trailed. I looked between them.

“You dumb blonde.”

“What am I going to do? Kick one of you two out?”

“We could alternate,” Weiss proposed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. If I can’t alternate spooning you two, you have to see why I have to be the one out in the other dorm. That’s life as a guy. I just have to hold that ‘l’.”

“Goofball.”

“But I’m not wrong, am I? I have to be the one out because the alternative is one of you being the one out and that just won’t fly.”

“And why not?” Weiss pressed.

“You know why not. I can’t kick one of my ladies out into the cold. That’s not okay with me. I’m very much not alright with it. And you wouldn’t have me any other way. That’s just the way it goes. You girls get to be warm and cuddled up and I need to find a way to deal with it.”

“That’s not fair,” Ruby disagreed.

“That’s my job,” I fired right back. “I always automatically get the short straw. That’s the price I have to pay for being engaged to two fantastic girls. You two need to accept that. That’s about as fair as it gets.”

“Ugh. You make me want to hit you,” Weiss decided. “But you like it when I hit you.”

“You’re such a darling. Especially when you hit me. It’s like, wow- how can I even cope without you hitting me in that way you do? Hit me some more, Weiss. Just go to town on me. I can take it.”

“It means I’m mad at you and I want you to stop.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it means ‘that was clever but I know what you did.’”

“We’ll have to find a house fast then. And set a date for the wedding. And Jaune and I need to get an engagement present for Weiss and Weiss and I need to get something for Jaune. Oh no, we need to get something for Jaune. What do we do, Weiss?”

“I was hoping you would have ideas…”

“He is hard to get things for because he’ll love it no matter what. What are we going to do?”

“Just get me any old thing and I’ll be happy that I’m being thought of at all?” I suggested.

“Shut up, Jaune. This is serious,” Ruby informed me gravely. “No matter what we do he’s going to treasure it.”

“That’s what I thought about you but we managed to pick something out. None of us like material things like jewelry,” Weiss pointed out. “But yes, he’s going to be impossible to shop for.”

“I’m literally so easy. Just get two rings each of which has your name or signature on it and call it good.”

“Ugh,” Ruby managed. “He’s awful.”

“He’s the worst,” Weiss agreed.

“And yet you two are marrying him. Me. Marrying me. Fucking wild.”

“Language,” Weiss chidded.

“Butt,” Ruby reminded. She thumbed her new necklace. She popped the little latch open and closed as she worried it. It clicked and clacked minutely. “Well I don’t know. I have no ideas about what to get for him. This is going to take some serious brain storming. And it can’t be his ring idea because that will just gratify him.”

“He’s seriously horrendous about it. Could you imagine if we actually have to resort to that idea?”

Ruby shuddered.

“What’s wrong with the ring idea?” I asked. “I’d love it.”

“You suggested it. That’s what’s wrong with it,” Ruby pointed at me with venom. “We can’t use it for sure now.”

“She’s right. We can’t. It could have worked but because you came up with it, it just won’t fly,” Weiss agreed.

“I don’t get it. Is this just one of those girl things?”

“No.”

“Kinda,” Ruby informed me.

Weiss sighed. “We can’t let you win.”

“So it’s a game?”

“No,” Ruby informed me.

“A little,” Weiss said. But somehow they seemed in total agreement.

“This is super serious,” Ruby told me. “We have to make sure our idea is original and good.”

“But we can’t take your word because no matter what we get you, you will say you like it. And we can’t take any idea that comes from you because it has to come from us. So it’s kind of a game but it’s a fun and serious game. And you keep entrapping us more and more.”

“So if I come up with more suggestions-”

“Don’t you dare,” Weiss warned.

“Got it,” I said but I didn’t really at all. “I was just trying to make your lives easier.”

“We know. But that makes our job all the more difficult,” Ruby said. “You’d do anything to make our lives easier. You’d love a crummy gift and cherish it forever. So we have no way of knowing if our idea is any good.”

“And you coming up with suggestions just limits the things we can actually do because we have to be the ones to come up with it without your help. It’s honestly a little like why you think you always deserve the short straw. It comes from a gentlemanly place but it’s frustrating to deal with and we can’t even really be mad at you for it because it’s gentlemanly. Do you see?”

“A little better now. I’ll send you guys a list of suggestions.”

“Don’t!” Weiss ordered.

“No!” Ruby begged.

“I don’t know. I sort of like this strange power I have over you.”

“I’ll give you head if you don’t,” Ruby bargained.

“You’d do that anyway. You’re such a bottom. You do whatever I tell you in the bedroom.”

“Maybe I’ll take charge and be in control for once,” Ruby threatened. But she was threatening me with a good time.

“Sure. Yeah. Go ahead,” I agreed. “Whenever you want, sweetheart.”

Ruby’s gaze wavered then fell. “You butt.”

“Don’t bully Ruby. And don’t come up with any more suggestions. You basically eliminated our ability to choose rings as a gift at all,” Weiss informed me. “Just like that. In one fell swoop you demolished so many possibilities. Don’t make our lives any harder by trying to make our job any easier.”

“So if I just started listing jewelry items you would be screwed.”

“Seriously do not. I’ll give you head,” Weiss somehow made that sound threatening. “We’ll both give you head.”

“That would seriously be a good enough engagement gift,” I told them both. “Like honestly I don’t want anything and time spent with you would be priceless. Weiss could sing for me and I would be like, ‘this is enough.’ Ruby could look at me with those eyes and it would be a job done for you guys. I really don’t want anything more than what I already have.”

“We know that too!”

“That’s why you’re so hard to get a gift for,” Weiss explained. “No matter what we do it will be ‘good enough,’ and you know what? Maybe we want to do better than 'good enough.' But we have no way of knowing if it really is better than ‘good enough’ because you belong to us so completely that all you really want is a tandem blowjob or the sound of my voice or Ruby’s gorgeous eyes. We want it to be more special than that. We want it to be something you carry around and always feel to remind you of us. A blowjob just isn’t it. Or Ruby looking at you. Or listening to me sing just won’t cut it.”

“I think that depends on the blowjob. And therapy costs money but listening to you sing is priceless.”

“Aw.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. Don’t ‘aw’ that, Ruby. That’s how he gets you. He’s just trying to flatter me.”

“Yeah. I am,” I agreed. “And you can’t take that away from me. Because you’re my darling and I want to flatter you. I would be honored if you were flattered by me. It would be my special, privileged pleasure.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Weiss decided.

“It’s shameless how you flirt with me,” I swooned. “Insult me. Hit me. Abuse me. It only shows that you care.”

“I can’t win with you,” Weiss decreed. “No matter what I do you get to walk away from this the victor. I can’t reward you. I can’t punish you. There’s nothing to be done because you take it all in stride.”

“You could come give me a hug,” I suggested. “Let me scoop you up in my arms and kiss your neck.”

“I bet you would like that wouldn’t you. I bet you would just love that.”

“Yeah. I would. I really would. And so would you. Don’t rebel against your desires, Weiss. Would it really be so awful to get swept up into my arms and kissed around the ears.”

“You plague me. Just because I told you not to bully Ruby, you harass me instead.”

“But you’re so adorable when I trap you. It’s like when Ruby blushes. I want it so bad. It ought to be criminal how you enslave me. But no, you walk around as a totally free woman to tease and taunt and make me into a dog. That’s what is really not fair.”

“You give me that power over you. Of your own free will.”

“You give me this power over you. You could deny me. You could deny me and shoe me off. But you don’t. You like it.”

Weiss’s cheeks turned rosy and she looked at Ruby for assistance.

“What? I would also like to kiss your neck. I’d like to watch him eat you for lunch. Don’t expect me to bail you out. Tell us, Weiss.”

Weiss sighed resignedly.

“Look how red she got around her ears,” I pointed out to Ruby.

“Careful. You’ll melt her, Jaune,” Ruby agreed.

“I told him not to bully you and this is how you repay me? You’re supposed to have my back,” Weiss demanded.

“I do have your back. Just not how you want me to.”

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-WG

[revasserium]

Hey! Can i please ask for 5 + Oikawa? Thanks!

hq!!reqs temporarily: closed ; all other reqs: open

send me a number a character and i’ll write you a drabble ;

5. love as one of the dead languages oikawa ; 3,718 words, assassin!au 

a/n: this will… maybe. have a part 2… maybe. 

for him, love was never a question, and death almost always the answer. it was never a question of why, only how and where and when. but then again, he’d never questioned the who either, assassination as a trade, or the stock of lives taken like tally-marks against his skin – sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he thinks he can hear them screaming. 

the first time he meets you, it’s at the grocery store. you bump into him, one airpod hanging from your ear, a loaded shopping basket swinging from your arms. you turn with wide eyes and a cherry-stem mouth to apologize for not paying more attention. 

he tells you it’s okay, smiles, and glances at the things in your basket. 

“big party this weekend?” 

you shake your head, grinning up at him, “nope! i just really like cooking. so i cook a ton of food and bring it to all my neighbors. there’s an old lady that lives two doors down from me who loves it! and she has the cutest cat – his name is mr. meowmers.” 

oikawa blinks, your voice chiming through him like church bells, the sound of it something he doesn’t think he’ll forget in a hurry. there’s a light in your eyes that makes him wonder if you’ve ever tasted the pain of heartbreak, another part of him that hopes (wishes, like a child on a shooting start) that you won’t ever have to. 

“ah…” is all he musters before you’re off again. 

“he’s a really cute cat, but i think i’m a little allergic. i always get the sniffles when i visit them. or maybe it’s just cause the old lady hasn’t dusted in like… 87 years.” 

oikawa laughs, and the realization shocks even himself. when was the last time he’d laughed like that – a completely unweaponized thing, reactionary and natural. he tries to think back and finds that he can’t remember. 

“oh shit! sorry, i’ve gotta go – the weather forecast said it was gonna rain and i left the goats out on the window. bye! and sorry again for bumping into you!” 

he doesn’t have the chance to ask you your name; he spends the remainder of his shopping trip wondering why he’d ever want such a thing. it’s not like him to be so… sentimental. 

two days later, he moves into a new safehouse. and it’s in a nice enough building, if a little dated (built in the 80′s, or something like that), doorman and mailroom – he thinks he’ll be sad to leave. it isn’t till he hears someone knocking on his door that he frowns, pressing the large sniper rifle he’d been assembling back into its case and kicking the entire thing under the couch before peering cautiously into the peephole. 

his stomach drops out of his body at the sight of your face. 

your cheeks a little pink, your bottom lip caught in your teeth. 

you reach out to knock again, but oikawa pulls the door open with a colgate smile. 

“hi! i’m sorry to bother – oh! it’s you!” 

you blink up at him as he leans casually against the doorframe, wondering what on earth you’re doing here. 

“ah – yes, it’s me,” he says with a small flourish of hands, his heart thumping against his ribcage. the world swaying beneath him because why the hell are you here? and more importantly, why does he care so damn much? 

“uhm – i was wondering if i could borrow some sugar? it’s just – i was baking and i was halfway through mixing everything before i realized that i forgot to buy sugar that one time at the store and – well, the old lady, she likes stuff really, really sweet, even though her doctor’s been telling her that she needs to keep the sugar intake down. and –” you teeter on the balls of your feet, rocking forwards and backwards as you babble on and oikawa can’t help feeling just a bit endeared. 

“do you live here?” he asks, catching you in between breaths. 

you nod, your smile widening tenfold as you point to the door diagonally across from his. his heart sinks into the place where his stomach used to be. 

“yep! just over there.” 

oikawa forces another smile and jerks his head towards his living room, “i can get you some sugar if you give me a sec. how much do you need?” 

you purse your lips, your eyes glittering with what he imagines is an entire galaxy of just-born stars, “just a cup! oh – or maybe two – to be on the safe side. in case i need them for the cupcakes. yeah, definitely two cups.” 

oikawa nods before retreating back into the apartment. he scoops out two cups of sugar from his untouched sugar box into a large bowl and returns to the door, handing it over with a smile. 

you bow your head, your hair fluttering around your shoulders – its only then that he notices how long it is, falling around your face like a waterfall, sleek and smooth and – 

he wonders if it’s soft. girls’ hair usually is. he wonders if it’ll smell nice too. 

he resists the urge to lean foward and check. 

“thank you! i’ll bring you some when they’re finished – and uhm – well,” you stand back up, your cheeks three shades darker than they were before, “thanks, again,” you totter along the edge of your words, and he leans in, as if drawn forward by some invisible force – perhaps gravity, perhaps something much less physical. but he stops himself. 

this is not the time, nor the place. 

“you’re welcome! and, thanks in advance! i’m sure the cake will be delicious!” 

he watches you scurry a back to your door, bowing once more before you turn into your own apartment, the sliver of it he catches when you open your door is bright and a veritable explosion of pastel colors. 

by the time you disappear back into your own apartment, oikawa is already hitting speed dial on his phone. 

“tell me you didn’t fuck this mission up already.” 

oikawa scowls at the sound of iwaizumi’s voice. 

“i’m not always a fuck-up, have a little faith.” 

iwaizumi lets out a bark of laughter, “right, like that time you accidentally left your gloves on the rooftop of the shinjuku hit? or that time –” 

“okay, okay – shut up! i get it, so i’m a little… scattered, but i always get the job done, don’t i?” 

iwaizumi snorts across the lines, “yeah. by some godforsaken miracle.” 

oikawa smirks, “i’m pretty sure being forsaken by god is a prerequisite for assassination as a career path. isn’t that like… on the pamphlet they give you at job fairs?” 

“alright, what do you want?” 

oikawa slumps down on his sofa, “the girl living diagonally across the hall from me. in unit 1012 – whatever info we’ve got on her.” 

silence. and then. 

“do i even wanna ask?” 

oikawa grins, glancing down at the bit of sugar caught on his shirt, “depends. do you like cupcakes?” 

two days later, he returns from a particularly grisly assignment, his joints aching from a completely unwarranted bar fight, the front of his shirt completely soaked in blood and beer. he doesn’t even want to think about how he might smell. 

“rough day at work?” 

every muscle in his body tenses at the sound of your voice. his hand rests on his door and he somehow manages not to break the handle off the hinges. 

he turns towards you, pressing his lips into a rice paper smile. 

“something like that. some of the coworkers wanted to get some drinks after and uh – things got a little messy.” 

you laugh, your shoulders shaking, your eyes alight with mirth. he watches you with a muted fascination. he’s never known anyone to laugh as freely as you do. 

“a little, you look like you murdered a guy!” 

he laughs, “oh, homicide via tequila shots is a pretty frequent occurrence in my life, so, you’re not entirely wrong.” 

you smile, ducking into your apartment only to return a moment later with a platter of freshly baked cookies. 

“here, i made these today – macadamia nuts, you said you like them, right?” 

oikawa nods, cautiously reaching out to take a few, hoping that you won’t notice the blood caked beneath his fingernails. 

when he finally pushes through the door of his own temporary abode, he finds iwaizumi sprawled across the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table. 

his eyebrows are millimeters from disappearing into his hairline. 

“homicide via tequila shots – really?” 

oikawa scoffs through a mouthful of cookie, pulling his sullied shirt over his head and tossing it into the basket by his door, lovingly labeled burn pile. 

iwaizumi eyes him with a curious expression. 

“i got the file, on the chick in 1012.” he waves a thin folio in the air before tossing it down onto the table by his feet. oikawa swallows, licks the crumbs from his lips before picking up the file. 

he nods, skimming over your name, birth date, birth place, social security, nationality. 

“studying criminal psychology, interesting.” 

iwaizumi cackles, “that girl? criminal psych? please say sike.” 

oikawa frowns, “you never know, she could have been onto us since day one.” 

iwaizumi rolls his eyes, “us – you mean you? letting her borrow sugar.” 

oikawa scoffs, “it’s just sugar, and it’s not like i’ll ever use it for anything.” 

“right, cause you can’t cook worth a shit.” 

“i’ll filet your ass if you keep on going off –” 

“you know that this can’t be a thing, right?” iwaizumi’s voice dips into a lower register, his eyes going dark as he leans forward to fix oikawa with a look. 

oikawa narrows his eyes, “of course i know it can’t be a thing – i let her borrow sugar. it’s not like a fucking proposal for marriage –” 

iwaizumi shrugs, “with you, i’m never sure.” 

oikawa pouts, raising his hand to toss your file back at iwaizumi. but he stops himself with a sigh. he opens his mouth to say something, but a series of knocks at the door tells him that you’re on the other side of it. probably with another tray of some baked good you’d spent the whole day making. 

he takes a breath and opens the door. 

“hey! i made challa bread – cause the couple in 1017 are jewish and – oh, were you about to take a shower? sorry –” 

oikawa glances down at his bare chest and flashes you a sheepish grin. 

“i was about to hop in the shower, but damn, these look really good. did you have to braid it yourself and everything?” 

you nod, the excitement painted so plainly across your face he feels his heart stutter. 

fuck. 

“here! uhm – this one’s for you. and uh – if your friend wants some, he can have some too! i’ll let you get back to your – uhm –” you glance at his chest again before flushing the most darling shade of pink, “showering,” you finish, bowing as he reaches out to pick up the large loaf of challah bread. he waves his free hand as you scramble back to your own apartment, glancing over your shoulder once more before ducking behind the door. 

oikawa closes his own door with a sigh. 

he meets iwaizumi’s gaze with a flatline one of his own. 

iwaizumi looks from the loaf of bread in oikawa’s hands back up to his face. 

“not a marriage proposal, huh?” he scoffs, “damn, you’re fucked.” 

oikawa stares down at the freshly baked bread in his hands before heaving a sigh. 

“get out of my house – i still need to shower.” 

iwaizumi gives him one last once-over before pushing to his feet. he brushes by oikawa with a grimace, pausing by the door even as oikawa sets the challah on the kitchen counter. 

“y’know, it’s the first time i’ve heard you call anywhere a house.” 

oikawa stiffens. “it’s called a safehouse, isn’t it?” 

iwaizumi lets out a mirthless laugh, “yeah, but the way i see it now – it’s the farthest thing from safe for you.” 

and then he’s gone, before oikawa has the time to snap back, or perhaps throw something at the back of his head. oikawa glares at the place where iwaizumi had sat on his couch and vows to wash the pillow covers the next day. he glances back at the challah bread, and then to the file still on his coffee table. 

maybe, just maybe, he should find a new safehouse. he takes a cold shower and decides to invite you to dinner next week instead. 

“i thought you said you’d made lasagna before!” you laugh, bumping oikawa out of the way with your hip, bending over to inspect the damage he’d managed to do in the four minutes you were in the living room picking a movie to watch. 

“i have! in cooking mama – and garfield makes it look pretty easy,” he says, pouting as he leans over you, trying to watch what you were doing with the lasagna but he can’t concentrate for the smell of your shampoo. green apple and jasmine flowers. coffee beans and petrichor. 

you almost smack into his nose as you lean back up, closing the oven door with a snap. 

“it’ll be ready in about four more minutes. and is john wick okay with you?” you glance over your shoulder at him. he licks his lips before flashing you a sheepish smile. 

“maybe something that’s not about killing people?” 

you smile, “what, not good with blood?” 

oikawa shrugs, “something like that. what about marley and me?” 

you gasp, “so you’re okay with a dog dying, but not with people?” 

he yelps, shaking his head, “i mean, no! it’s just – you had a lab when you were younger, right? so i thought maybe –” 

you quirk your head, “how’d you know i had a lab?” 

oikawa blinks. 

well shit. 

the timer goes off and you jump, turning back to the oven. the moment passes like any other moment, and with you tittering about how hot the lasagna pan is, oikawa tries to remember that breathing shouldn’t be so difficult – but it is. he forces himself to breathe in, and then out, and then in again. 

you end up watching something on the disney channel, but oikawa’s too distracted by the way your leg is pressed up against his for the entire duration of the movie to pay attention. 

the lasagna is good (no thanks to him), and when the movie ends, you turn to smile at him, a bit of sauce on your upper lip. he reaches out to wipe it away and time slows around him, the way it usually does right before he pulls the trigger, every millisecond coalescing around him in stark, mind-numbing clarity. 

you lean forward at the same time he does. 

the second before he kisses you feels like an entire eternity – one that he can stretch and bend to his will as he pleases. something he can mold between the palms of his hands – these hands that have only ever known death now cupped around your cheeks like they’re learning how to hold life for the very first time. 

he kisses you with trembling lips and when you pull back, you flash him a tiny little frown. 

“why’re you shaking? i’m not going anywhere.” 

oikawa lets out a breathy laugh before leaning in to kiss you again, harder this time. his lips more sure, though his mind is the furthest thing from sure – he can’t shake the tightness curling in his chest, wrapping his heart in a thick gauze of worry – when he pulls away again, breathless and lightheaded, he wonders if this is what fear feels like. 

real fear. like the phobia of heights, or falling. 

or rather, falling in love. 

shit. fuck. goddammit. 

the next time he meets iwaizumi, the latter is much too pleased with oikawa’s clear distress. 

“not gonna say i told you so,” he says, smirking as he tosses back a glass of scotch. 

oikawa glares, nursing his own glass between his fingers, “well you just said it, so fuck you.” 

iwaizumi raps his knuckles on the bar for a refill. it appears a moment later, and he promptly downs this one as well. 

“well, you know my advice. nip it in the bud – kill it before it –” 

“she’s got a name –” 

“fuck oikawa, i was talking about the relationship, not actually killing her.” 

oikawa tosses back his own drink, grimacing as it hits the back of his throat. 

“could’a fooled me.” 

iwaizumi frowns before flagging down the bartender and tapping at oikawa’s glass. 

“we’ll take the rest of the bottle.” 

the bartender regards him with a dubious look before iwaizumi tosses down his black card and the bartender bows, scurrying away to fetch the drink. 

“he’ll probably upcharge you for that,” oikawa says, not looking up from his empty glass. 

iwaizumi shrugs, “who cares. company card.” 

oikawa allows himself a helpless sort of grin. 

“maybe i’ll just tell her,” he says, swaying in his seat as the bartender returns with the bottle of tequila and iwaizumi’s card. 

iwaizumi thanks the man before turning back to oikawa. 

“what, that you kill people for a living? please don’t – i’ll end up having to take you out, and we both know you’re not gonna enjoy that.” 

oikawa laughs, “you wouldn’t kill me.” 

iwaizumi heaves a long sigh, “wouldn’t i?” 

oikawa shakes his head, and a moment later, iwaizumi laughs. 

“you’re right. i probably wouldn’t. which is why they’d assign someone else to you. someone without any emotional connection – and then you’ll be just another target. just another mark.” 

oikawa nods, “just another mark,” he repeats, even as iwaizumi refills his glass. 

“so,” iwaizumi says, slipping off the barstool, clapping oikawa on the shoulder, “like i said, kill it before it gets worse. and i mean –” he shrugs, “if you gotta kill her too. well, that’s just how it be sometimes, right?” 

oikawa grunts, downing his drink before pouring himself another. 

that night, he gets home way too late, only to find you curled up on his couch, his jacket tossed over your shoulders. 

he smiles as he crouches down next to you, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, letting his fingers linger against your skin. he watches the way you sleep, peaceful, without a single sign of bad dreams. what must it be like, to be so innocent and unhaunted by the cruelties of the world? to fall asleep without the fear of death looming over your next waking moments. 

he leans in, his lips moments from yours when you awaken again, smiling as he kisses you. tender and sweet. 

“rough day at work?” you ask, blinking sleepily up at him. 

“yeah,” he says, smiling as you push yourself up onto your elbows, barely stifling a yawn, “sorry i’m so late. there was a big project that needed finishing.” 

you nod, burying your head in the crook of his neck as he scoops you up into his arms. he carries you to the bedroom and lays you down in bed, kicking off his pants and shucking his shirt before crawling into bed next to you, curling up around you with a long breath. 

you relax into him, your heartbeat steady beneath his palm as he holds you close.

after a moment, you giggle, twisting around in his arms till you’re face to face, your hands pressed against his chest. you lean up to kiss him, nipping playfully at his lower lip as you do. 

“quit being such a scardy cat, like i said, i’m not going anywhere.” 

he smiles and crushes you against him, burrowing into the junction of your neck, the place where you smell the most like you. he takes a deep breath, and then another. they both come out shakey, and you card your fingers through his hair with a sigh. 

“do you wanna talk about it?” 

oikawa shakes his head. 

“okay then, we don’t have to talk about it – but here’s what i know – i know that you’re a good person. and that you like cats more than dogs, but you’re also super loyal, like a dog. you suck at cooking, but you’re not terrible at baking, and you like classical music with violins in it. i know that you’ve got your heart in the right place, and to me, that’s all that matters.” 

you hold his face between your palms like it’s something precious. 

he hiccups and wonders if it’s at all healthy to be feeling like this – to be so full of some unnamed emotion, to be boiling with it to the point where he’s sure he’ll burst. he kisses you, hard, and hopes that somehow, someway – this will all work out. 

though he has no idea how. 

he pulls back with a watery laugh. 

“you’re the best.” 

you smile and lean in to nuzzle your nose against his. 

when you pull back, he settles into the pillow, hooking one of his legs over yours with a contented grin. 

you trace the line of his nose with your forefinger, bringing it down to his lips, where he presses in to give you another kiss. 

“tooru?” 

“hm?” he hums, allowing the tiredness to seep from his body and into the sheets. he thinks that whatever it takes – whatever that might be – to make all of this, all of this with you, work out – he’ll worry about it tomorrow. 

you lick your lips. 

“can i ask you something?” 

he smiles, a little sleepy, a little (or maybe a lot) in love, “sure, shoot.” 

you take a breath, hesitate for a moment before – 

“why do you always smell like gunpowder?” 

—

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